What Yahya Sinwar’s Death Means

Yahya Sinwar’s death does not mean the end of the war against Hamas. That is what the Bidenites want it to mean; they want Netanyahu to “take the win” and declare a ceasefire, but that “win” will only be achieved when Hamas is sufficiently dismantled, unable to regroup, so that it will no longer be a military threat to Israelis for years to come. But his killing does great damage to Hamas’ morale, and confirms that the IDF is not about to end its assault on the terror group. Now that so many of Hamas’ top echelon have been killed, their replacements may be willing to deal. They see that their leaders are being killed, one after the other, while much of Gaza’s infrastructure has been reduced to rubble. Whatever their public remarks, the new leaders in Hamas realize that the IDF in Gaza has gone from strength to strength, while Hamas gets ever weaker. Why continue to be pummeled by the relentless IDF which will only lead to more Hamas deaths and infrastructure destroyed, when freeing the hostages is likely to lead to a ceasefire, and Gaza will then become the favored, though quite undeserving, recipient of massive amounts of aid from all over?

More on what Yahya Sinwar’s killing means can be found here: “With Jihadist Mass Murderer Dead, Israel Takes Another Stride Forward,” by Yakov Lappin, JNS.org, October 18, 2024:

The elimination of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s top military-terrorist and political chief and the architect of the Oct. 7 invasion—the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust—marks a major turning point in the battle to degrade the Iranian-backed jihadist network surrounding Israel.

IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari explained on Thursday that Sinwar had been attempting to flee from house to house, moving between structures in Rafah. Hagari noted that Sinwar “was in flight,” and at one point, after the entourage protecting him had been fired upon by the IDF and split up, Sinwar fled alone into a building.

Sinwar’s death, achieved by fighters from the 450th battalion of the IDF School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders (known by its Hebrew acronym, the Bislamach Brigade) occurred in Rafah on Oct. 16.

Two tank shells directed by the force at the building where he was hiding led to Sinwar to first being injured, and then killed by the second shell. In between the two shell strikes, a squad commander with soldiers who attempted to search the building encountered grenades, retreated, and sent quadcopters inside to gather intelligence. One of the quadcopters filmed Sinwar sitting in a room, injured, hurling a plank at the drone (and missing it). The tank shell that eliminated Sinwar soon followed.

In fact, it was a sniper’s bullet, and not the tank shell, that killed Sinwar.

Sinwar’s attempt to flee, Hagari said, was driven by the pressure exerted by Israeli forces, who had been closing in on him in Rafah over a prolonged period. Hagari also mentioned that Sinwar had been using tunnels and the cover of civilians to avoid detection. His DNA had been found in a tunnel located a few hundred meters from the site of where Hamas murdered six Israeli hostages in late August.

The elimination significantly weakens Hamas’s operational capabilities and disrupts its leadership structure. Sinwar’s removal is not only a tactical victory but also a strategic achievement that vindicates Israel’s refusal to agree to premature withdrawals that would have allowed Hamas to regroup and rearm. This achievement moves Israel significantly closer to neutralizing the Iranian-jihadist vision of a “ring of fire” around its borders….

While the IDF is well along in its campaign to dismantle Hamas in Gaza, it is still in the midst of weakening Hezbollah in Lebanon sufficiently so that it stops launching rockets and drones into northern Israel, and pulls its forces away from the border with Israel and north of the Litani River as it had long ago been committed to doing under UNSC Resolution 1701. The Houthis in Yemen, meanwhile, have been on the receiving end of both Israeli and American missile strikes.

Sinwar was a fanatic, willing to see all of Gaza ruined, and tens of thousands of Gazans killed, rather than agree to a ceasefire. He did not die bravely fighting, but scrambling in terror from house to house in Rafah, hoping to escape into Egypt. His last act was one of surpassing impotence: he threw a stick, possibly at a drone; it missed. Those who succeed him are unlikely to be as fanatical, and that could possibly lead to a deal — freedom for the remaining hostages in exchange for a ceasefire. Much will depend on who succeeds Sinwar as the head of Hamas in Gaza. But whoever follows him cannot possibly be as fanatically murderous. And the IDF, newly heartened by his death, will in Gaza keep on keeping on, for as long as it takes to grind Hamas down to the ground.

Sinwar’s fatal error was in assuming that Hezbollah and Iran would simultaneously join Hamas in attacking Israel in a three-front war. Neither was prepared to do that. Hezbollah did however, join Hamas on October 8, in launching rockets and missiles into Israel; in the year since, it has fired 8,500 rockets and missiles into Israel. Meanwhile, the puppetmaster Iran allowed its proxies to do the fighting, limiting itself to a barrage of 300 missiles launched against Israel that did no damage, and another barrage of 180 ballistic missiles on October 1; a handful got through Israeli defenses and one made a hole in the roof of the soldiers’ mess at Nevatim Air Base. But those are the only attacks carried out directly on Israel by Iran in the past year.

The IDF is not only freeing Israelis from barrages of missiles and drones launched by Hamas, which has declared its intent to carry out the kind of attacks it carried out on October 7 — raping, torturing, mutilating, murdering — “again and again.” It is also helping the Gazans to liberate themselves from the Hamas terror group that until now has held those Gazans in an iron grip. The death of Sinwar hastens the day when Palestinians in Gaza will feel able to liberate themselves from a much-weakened Hamas, the terror group that has brought them such grief. More Palestinians are now daring, after Sinwar’s death was announced, to speak out against Hamas, some even talking to foreign journalists about how they wish they could afford sweets that could then be handed out in celebration of his death. Hamas is now unsteady, rudderless, petrified of when and where, with advise from Mossad and the Shin Bet, the IDF may be planning to strike next. It doesn’t dare even to release the name of the man chosen to replace Sinwar, so scared has Hamas become of the IDF promptly eliminating him.