Mohammad Sinwar was elevated to the top ranks of the Palestinian militant group last year after Israel killed his brother, Yahya Sinwar, in combat. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said that Hamas Gaza chief, Mohammad Sinwar, has been eliminated.
Mohammad Sinwar was elevated to the top ranks of the Palestinian militant group last year after Israel killed his brother, Yahya Sinwar, in combat.
“We eliminated Mohammed Sinwar,” Netanyahu told a parliament plenary session on Wednesday.
Earlier, Israeli media reported that Sinwar was targeted in Israeli air strikes in southern Gaza earlier this month. However, it was not confirmed by the Israeli defence forces at the time.
Who was Mohammad Sinwar ?
After the death of his brother and Hamas’s late leader, Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad took over the military wing and the political command in Gaza.
Born Mohammad Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza, he worked his way up to the ranks of Hamas over several decades.
Nicknamed “the shadow” by Israeli officials due to his secretive activities, Sinwar was a key figure within the group. In 2006, he was involved with the abduction of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, an operation that later led to a prisoner exchange deal in 2011.
While spending years in Israeli and Palestinian prisons, he developed close ties with other Hamas leadership and joined the military movement of Hamas in 1991.
Mohammad Sinwar was regarded as the mastermind behind the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.
Several attempts have previously been made by Israel to assassinate Sinwar. In 2014, Hamas announced that Sinwar had died during the Israel-Gaza war, but that information proved to be false.
