Who’s Yahya Sinwar, ‘Butcher of Khan Younis’, who plotted October 7 massacre

In October 2023, several Israelis were held hostage in a dark tunnel in Gaza. Suddenly, a man emerged out of nowhere. This was the Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar. When asked if he was ashamed of abducting an Israeli peace campaigner, he responded with silence. This video found by the Israeli military was one of the last traces of the terror-group Hamas’s new chief — Yahya Sinwar. This is the man who ordered the October 7 attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 people. While it has been difficult to find him, he is the prime target of Israel.
The last trace of Sinwar was in a video from October 10, where he was seen with his wife and children as he went into a narrow tunnel, reports The Guardian.
On Thursday, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were cross-checking if Sinwar was among three people killed in an airstrike in Gaza. DNA samples are being matched in Israel, according to reports.
Before the reports of the operation in Gaza, Sinwar had been out of the public eye for weeks now, fuelling speculations that he was dead. But several reports, including one from the Washington Post, claimed Sinwar was alive and ordering “suicide bombings”.
The White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk even claimed that he was in an underground Gaza tunnel, also called “Gaza metro”, according to the Times of Israel. A report by the Guardian also states that Sinwar is in a tunnel inside Gaza, a completely underground city, with human shields to protect him.
It wouldn’t have been easy for Israel to locate Sinwar, who spent 22 years in an Israeli jail. He had an understanding of Israeli military brains, and their security systems work. He also had the skills to evade them.
The 22 years in jail and an impoverished childhood in Gaza’s refugee camps steeled Sinwar’s resolve for a Palestinian nation.
Sinwar was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in 1962.
In 2011, Sinwar negotiated the exchange of 1,027 prisoners in Israeli custody, including himself, for one kidnapped Israeli soldier held in Gaza. As Sinwar continued the nerve-wracking negotiations, an Israeli assault led to the death of thousands of Palestinians.
Sinwar was infamous as the ‘Butcher of Khan Younis’ for torturing and killing at least a dozen Palestinians accused of spying for the Israelis.
His high tolerance for suffering for himself and others was one of the reasons of dissent among some Gazans against him. He, however, had a firm grip on Hamas.
Sinwar was one rare enemy of Israel who was still standing. Israel, in recent months, has already eliminated the top leaders of the Lebanon-based terror group, Hezbollah, including its chief Hasan Nasrallah and his potential successor, Hashem Safieddine. Israel is also in a war with Iran, which backs Hezbollah.
But all is not too well within the ranks of the terror group Hamas, too.
But even within Hamas, there are divisions between Sinwar’s extremist group and the ‘hotel guys’.
Yahya Sinwar heads the extremist group within Hamas from Gaza. The Gaza faction is in favour of resorting to violence to remove Israelis from Gaza. This is in contrast to Ismail Haniyeh’s Qatar group, which favoured negotiations and limited violence. The latter is based in Doha, Qatar, reports The Washington Post.
Sinwar calls these groups “hotel guys” as they live in large buildings in Qatar. Even in launching the October 7 attacks in Israel, there was contention, reports The Washington Post. The Qatar group had called Sinwar a “megalomaniac”.
With the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh by Israel in Tehran in July, Sinwar has all the power in Hamas now.
“Yahya Sinwar remains the decision-maker. He remains — we believe — alive and in a tunnel underneath Gaza, holding hostages, and likely with hostages in his vicinity,” McGurk said, according to the Times of Israel.
But even before it, the Qatar group had criticised the Gaza group for its extreme violence.
The Hamas leader ordered his commanders in the West Bank to renew suicide bombings in Israel right after he replaced Haniyeh in August.
But Israel has been hunting for Sinwar since October 7. This is a top priority for it. Many reports suggest he is hidden under a tunnel in Gaza and that Israel is looking for it actively. Both advanced technology and force have been unleashed in the search for him.
The forces looking for him are intelligence officers, special operations units from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), military engineers and surveillance experts under the Israeli security agency.
The Israelis are waiting for Sinwar to make the slightest mistake. The only reason Sinwar has been surviving still is because he hasn’t made that mistake.
“If you’d told me when the war began that more than 11 months later he would still be alive, I would have found it amazing,” Michael Milshtein, a former head of the Palestinian affairs section in Israeli Military Intelligence told The Guardian.
“But remember, Sinwar prepared for a decade for this offensive and IDF intelligence was very surprised by the size and length of the tunnels under Gaza and how sophisticated they were,” he added.
Added to the years-long preparation by Sinwar-led Hamas is the underground tunnel network in Gaza. The tunnels pass below houses and hospitals.
There are 500 kms of tunnels under Gaza and Sanwar is even surrounded by human shields, according to Irsraeli reports.
“Because of the hostages, we are very careful with what we are doing. I believe if there were no such restrictions, we would have found him easier,” Ram Ben-Barak, a former deputy director of the Mossad told the Guardian.
Along with its military and intelligence, Israel is also using Yahalom, a special brigade with the Combat Engineering Corps which has expertise in tunnel warfare as it uses state-of-the-art US-made ground-penetrating radar. They also have Unit 8200, is the largest global leader in electronic warfare and in listening on communication of Hamas.
The Shin Bet, responsible for Israel and Israeli intelligence services, saw a breakdown in 2005, but it worked hard to rebuild its informants after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It is also involved in the hunt for Sinawar.
But despite the all-out efforts, they have been close to catching Sinwar, once in a bunker in his home town of Khan Yunis in late January.
Sinwar’s trackers are suspecting that he left all forms of electronic devices to avoid getting tracked by the Israeli intelligence.
Sinwar also understands the Israeli culture and psychology well.
“He really understands the basic instincts and the deepest feelings of Israeli society,” said Milshtein, now at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. “I’m quite sure every move he makes is based on his understanding of Israel.”
In his attempt to communicate with Doha and even Cairo, communication has lagged now.
Israel is hoping to track Sinwar through courier services now.
This would be similar to how Osama bin Laden had been tracked.
“The Shabak and the army were waiting just for this opportunity. All these targeted killings are about waiting for the one minor mistake by the other side. But Sinwar is more cautious. He is not a military commander who has shown himself to be among his people.”
As for the speculations on Sinwar leaving Gaza to save his life, experts find it unlikely.
“I don’t think he will cross into Egypt, because the moment that people know he is not in Gaza, the whole [Hamas] operation will collapse – its morale and so on. That’s why I don’t think he would do that. He’s not a coward,” Ben-Barak, the former Mossad deputy chief told the Guardian.
But even if Israel eliminates Sinwar, this is a bigger war. Bigger than people, groups and even countries. It is an ideological and psychological war fought with advanced weaponry.
“When we catch him, the situation will be much better, maybe for a couple of weeks,” Ben-Barak said. “After that, someone else will come. It is an ideological war, not a war about Sinwar.”