Israel says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead

Israel has confirmed the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, an Israeli official with knowledge of the matter tells NPR.

The Israeli government believes he was the mastermind behind Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Israel presumes Sinwar had been hiding in tunnels, with some analysts speculating he surrounded himself with Israeli hostages to protect him from assassination attempts.

The military said there were no signs of Israeli hostages in the area of the building where the three militants were killed and that troops were operating in the area with “caution.”

The military said earlier three militants were and that Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency was looking into whether one of them was Sinwar — Israel’s No. 1 most wanted man in Gaza.

An official familiar with the matter speaking anonymously to divulge more details said the militants were killed Wednesday in an Israeli firefight in southern Gaza. The official said a body is being checked for a match with Sinwar’s DNA.

Sinwar was the leader of Hamas in Gaza when the Palestinian militant group led a surprise attack on Israel just over a year ago, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials. About 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead.

He was appointed the leader of the entire group after Israel killed his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, in an explosion in Tehran in July. The Israeli military also said it had killed the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike in July. The Israeli military had earlier killed Hamas’ deputy political chief Salah Arouri in a bombing in Beirut in January.

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 42,400 Palestinians and injured more than 99,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Born on Oct. 29, 1962, according to Hamas, Sinwar helped found the group’s internal security apparatus in the late 1980s. He earned a nickname among Palestinians: the “butcher of Khan Younis,” where he grew up in the southern Gaza Strip.

Sinwar was seen as a hard-liner within Hamas, less likely to reach a ceasefire deal with Israel than other more pragmatic leaders. He was believed to have been directing operations from the group’s extensive tunnel network underneath the Gaza Strip, communicating with the outside world by means of handwritten notes delivered by couriers to avoid Israeli air strikes that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave.