Gaza:

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency jointly confirmed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Hamas has not given any official confirmation.

Sinwar was born in October 1962 in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. He studied at Khan Younis schools before being enrolled at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Arabic studies. In 2011, he married a woman from the Gaza Strip, and they have three children, Xinhua news agency reported.

He was first arrested in 1982 at the age of twenty for his involvement in subversive activities and subsequently placed under administrative detention for four months. After his release, he was arrested again just a week later and spent six months in prison without trial. In 1985 he was arrested again and sentenced to eight months in prison.

In 1988, he was arrested again and tried on charges related to directing the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers, as well as the murder of four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. He was sentenced to four life sentences.

During his captivity, Sinwar headed the Supreme Leadership Committee of Hamas prisoners in Israeli prisons, where he helped manage confrontations with prison authorities during a series of hunger strikes. He was transferred between different prisons.

He tried to escape from prison twice, but both attempts were unsuccessful.

Sinwar used his time in prison to read and write, learn Hebrew and write several books and translations in the political, security and literary fields.

He was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier.

After his release, Sinwar was elected to Hamas’s political bureau in the movement’s internal elections in 2012, where he took charge of security affairs. In 2013, he took over leadership of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, and coordinated efforts between the political bureau and the brigades’ leadership.

He was elected head of the movement’s political bureau in Gaza in 2017, and in 2021 he was re-elected for a second four-year term in the movement’s internal elections.

Sinwar’s house has been bombed several times and he is described as a cautious figure who rarely speaks in public.

Sinwar was considered the main architect of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

In August, Hamas announced that Sinwar had been appointed leader following the assassination of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)