Details of Yahya Sinwar's 'Accidental' Death; How the Life of Hamas Leader Came to an End?

Hours after three DNA tests, fingerprints, and dental records confirmed that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the extremist group Hamas, was killed by the Israeli army, the Prime Minister and military spokesperson of Israel confirmed that Sinwar's killing was accidental, not a targeted operation. Almost all key figures of Hamas in Gaza or the Lebanese Hezbollah have recently been killed as a result of targeted and designed operations by Israel, particularly through heavy air bombardments. Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist group, while the EU has listed its military wing as a terrorist organization. These two groups have been engaged in a parallel war with Israel for over a year, causing severe death and destruction in Gaza and southern Lebanon. According to Israeli officials and military spokespersons, despite the accidental nature of Sinwar's killing, it occurred following weeks of persistent ground operations by the army in the Tel al-Sultan area in southern Rafah and updates to military orders regarding the identification of all killed Hamas forces; an issue that Israeli media reported the new commander of the Southern Command emphasized for focused operations in this area. This incident occurred while some military personnel deemed intensive operations in this area no longer necessary and even supported the withdrawal of forces from Rafah. Israel entered Rafah amid strong opposition from the international community and even its main ally, the U.S., and has continued its operations there. Details provided by the army spokesperson and military reporters from Israeli media indicate that Yahya Sinwar's life came to an end on the morning of Wednesday, October 25. Israel was preparing for the Jewish religious holiday of Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the three major autumn festivals) amid rocket attacks from Hezbollah in the north and discussions related to finalizing the response to Iran's recent missile attack. The surprise attack by Hamas on Israeli territory last October, designed and executed by Yahya Sinwar, had occurred on the last day of this holiday. In the early hours of Wednesday, an infantry soldier stationed in Tel al-Sultan, Gaza, noticed movements of an individual possibly armed in a building. Upon informing the soldier's commander, the artillery unit fired into the building, and about five hours of silence ensued. Around three in the afternoon, three individuals were seen fleeing from the mentioned building. Two of them had wrapped themselves in blankets to apparently conceal the firearm they were carrying. The two men quickly ran toward another building to clear the way for a third individual who was moving rapidly behind them. It later became clear that the two were the last individuals Sinwar had trusted in the final days of his life to save himself. All three were injured in the Israeli forces' gunfire. While the two blanket-clad men entered one building, the third man fled toward another building. Israeli forces initially targeted the building where the two blanket-clad individuals had taken refuge with artillery, then fired a shot at the other building where the third man had entered. Meanwhile, a firefight was ongoing between the two blanket-clad men and the Israeli forces, and one Israeli soldier was also injured. At close range, the right hand of the third man was apparently severely injured by a shell fired from a tank. At this stage, based on army orders regarding buildings suspected of housing armed individuals, small drones were dispatched to assess the situation. A drone that entered the second floor of a relatively luxurious but semi-destroyed residential building showed a man covering his face with a large cloth, his right hand severely injured and bleeding, resting it on the arm of a sofa while watching the drone's path. He knew that this drone might represent the last moments of his life, and despite being injured, he threw a stick at it with his left hand, which was unsuccessful. The drone dropped another bomb on the masked man, and silence returned. The drone's data was recorded on the soldiers' computer. That night, in the silence of the operational area, the forces refrained from entering the building, but on the morning of Thursday, October 26, another drone was sent to observe the situation in the building. It soon became clear that the fleeing individual had been killed the previous day by the last bomb that struck his head, and there was no threat to the soldiers entering the building. When the forces entered the building on Thursday, they noticed a striking resemblance of the deceased individual to Yahya Sinwar. From here, the process of identifying the deceased began. Sinwar had been imprisoned in Israel for 23 years for killing five Palestinians whom he considered Israeli informants. He was on the brink of death in an Israeli prison due to a brain tumor, but an Israeli surgeon saved him from death. Initially, an Israeli dentist responsible for the oral health of prisoners had diagnosed Sinwar's potential tumor. Therefore, his DNA, fingerprints, and dental indicators that could quickly assist Israel in confirming the identity of the corpse were available to the country. Before transferring Sinwar's body to the official autopsy center in Abu Kabir, Tel Aviv, on the evening of October 26, the Israeli police first confirmed his death based on dental records, and then fingerprints and DNA tests showed that the deceased individual was Sinwar. Daniel Hagari, the spokesperson for the Israeli army, stated that they had roughly assessed Sinwar's hideout and knew he was in this part of Rafah and were trying to determine his exact location. He emphasized that there were no Israeli hostages at the operation site, and the army carefully examined the possibility of hostages being in the vicinity. The army spokesperson also confirmed news that had been reflected in Israeli media in recent weeks, stating that Yahya Sinwar had spent at least some of the last weeks of his life very close to the tunnel where six Israeli hostages, who were executed by Hamas, were kept. The six hostages, whose execution by Hamas shocked the Israeli public, were apparently killed by Hamas forces as the Israeli army approached, and the Hamas militants, seeking to escape with their leader, preferred to 'get rid' of the hostages. Alongside Sinwar, 40,000 shekels (equivalent to less than 12,000 U.S. dollars) and fake identity documents were found. Israeli media showed an image of an Egyptian passport. UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, announced that the passport belonged to one of its employees who had been on his way to Egypt for some time. According to Israeli media, the proximity of Sinwar's killing site to the underground tunnels of Rafah near Egypt raises the possibility that he had come above ground for a while to escape to Egypt. The Israeli Kan network stated that the army's operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah had apparently misled Sinwar into thinking that the military pressure on Gaza had eased. A pack of Mentos gum, a nail clipper, and a rosary were apparently the last items Sinwar had with him. However, he still wore his famous watch. Israeli media compared the circumstances of Sinwar's killing, in solitude and while fleeing, to the deaths of Muammar Gaddafi, the then-leader of Libya, or the extraction of Saddam Hussein, the fugitive leader of Iraq, by American forces, and considered it an important image of their military achievement in a year and a week of the Gaza war. From Israel's perspective, Sinwar's death, 19 days after the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, and two months and five days after the death of Ismail Haniyeh during his trip to Tehran, dealt serious blows to the two important proxy groups of Tehran that had occupied Israel for decades. With Sinwar's departure from the scene, however, the succession of Sinwar, the fate of the remaining hostages in Hamas's hands, the future of the war with Hezbollah, and the 'definitive response ahead' to Iran in reaction to Tehran's missile attack on Israel on October 1 are issues that currently occupy Israel's attention.