UPDATE
Oct 17, 2024 11:59 AM CDT
Israel has confirmed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a clash with Israeli troops in Gaza. "Mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who was responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7, was killed today by IDF soldiers," Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, per Reuters. Before the official announcement, sources told outlets including CNN and the Washington Post that the militant's body had been identified through DNA testing and dental records. Katz said the killing of Sinwar will "create the possibility to immediately release the hostages and to bring a change that will lead to a new reality in Gaza—without Hamas and without Iranian control," the AP reports. Hamas has not confirmed Sinwar's death.
Oct 17, 2024 9:44 AM CDT
Israel believes it may have killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of last year's Oct. 7 attacks. Officials say the body of one of three militants killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza on Wednesday is being checked for a match to DNA collected from Sinwar during his many years in Israeli prison, the New York Times reports. The 61-year-old, who'd been the leader of the militant group's Gaza operations since 2017, became the top Hamas official less than three months ago after Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran.
"If this did happen, it's the most dramatic achievement for Israel since Oct. 7," Michael Milshtein, a former head of Palestinian affairs for Israeli military intelligence," tells the Wall Street Journal. "It is clear that for Hamas it is a very serious hit both symbolically and functionally." There'd been reports that Sinwar had surrounded himself with hostages as human shields while in hiding in Gaza, but the Israeli military says no hostages were present in the building where troops clashed with militants on Wednesday, reports the Times of Israel. (More Yahya Sinwar stories.)
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