By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Jan 7 (Reuters) – Mohammed Sinwar, the elusive Hamas military chief in Gaza, has been Israel’s most wanted man since his brother’s death in 2024. On December 29, Hamas announced that he had died at the age of 49, nearly seven months after Israel killed him in an attack.
Hamas did not provide details on Sinwar’s death but expressed its condolences with other group leaders, describing them as “heroic martyrs”. Hamas confirmed in a statement that Sinwar is the head of the group’s armed forces.
In 2024, Sinwar was elevated to the top post of Hamas after masterminding the October 2023 attack on Gaza by Israel and later the overall leader of the Palestinian Authority was killed in combat.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in May 2025 that Shinwar was killed. Less than two weeks later, Israeli forces said they recovered Sinwar’s body in an underground tunnel beneath a hospital in southern Gaza.
Sinwar’s death is expected to leave Yzeldin Haddad, who oversees operations in northern Gaza, in charge of the entire enclave of Hamas’ armed wing, another command.
It is unclear how the death will affect Hamas’s decision-making process more broadly – for example, whether it will strengthen or reduce the influence of exiled members of the group’s leadership council on policy matters, particularly the full implementation of the Gaza ceasefire plan agreed with Israel in October.
attempted murder
Hamas officials described Sinwar as a “ghost” who had long outwitted Israel’s intelligence agencies.
Like his brother Yahya, Sinwar survived several Israeli raids and attempts to plant explosives, Hamas sources said.
When Sinwar visited the grave once, his friends found a brick-like remote-controlled explosive planted in his path, according to Hamas sources.
In 2003, Hamas operatives found a bomb in the wall of the home of Mohammed Sinwar, who foiled an assassination attempt the group blamed on Israeli intelligence.
Secret plots
Known for covert operations, Mohammed Sinwar played a central role in planning and executing Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the country’s worst security failure, Hamas sources said.
He was also widely believed to be one of the masterminds of the 2006 cross-border attack and kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Shalit was held by Hamas for five years before being replaced by more than 1,000 Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Under the deal, his brother Yahya Sinwar, whose meticulous planning for the 2023 invasion shattered Israel’s reputation as an invincible power in hostile territory, was among those released.
Hamas weakened but stood up
Netanyahu has vowed to eliminate Hamas. Attacks against Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces, the Middle East’s most advanced military, severely weakened the organization.
Yahya Sinwar was killed in combat in 2024 during a routine Israeli patrol in Gaza.
Israel released footage of a seriously wounded Yahya Sinwar throwing a piece of wood at a hovering drone – a final act of defiance towards his old enemy before his death and the rise of his brother.
But the group of suicide bombers, created during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 1987 and the second to traumatize Israelis, remains.
From Refugees to Radicals
Born on September 16, 1975, Sinwar rarely appears in public or speaks to the media. He gave a long interview to Al Jazeera for a documentary broadcast in 2022, but wore a hat and sat in the dark to hide his presence.
The Sinwar originally came from Ashkelon – now the Israeli city of Ashkelon, a short distance north of the Gaza Strip. Along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, they became refugees in what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when Israel declared independence during the 1948 war.
The family settled in Khan Yunis, Gaza, which has been largely reduced to rubble in the recent war.
Mohammed Sinwar was educated in schools run by the United Nations Palestinian Relief Agency (UNRWA), which has long been the target of Israeli criticism, including over the recent war in Gaza.
He joined Hamas shortly after its founding after being influenced by his brother Yahya, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Middle East’s oldest and once most influential Islamist group.
His reputation as a radical helped him rise through the group’s military ranks. By 2005, he was leading the Khan Younis Brigade of Hamas.
The unit, one of the largest and most powerful battalions of Hamas’ armed wing, has been responsible for cross-border attacks, firing rockets and planting bombs along the border. “Striking Tel Aviv is easier than drinking water,” Sinwar told Al Jazeera.
The unit also monitors the movements of Israeli soldiers around the clock. In 2006, elite commandos led by Sinwar participated in Shalit’s kidnapping.
According to sources close to Hamas, Sinwar developed a close relationship with Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, and Mohammed Def, the head of the independent military. Both men were killed by Israel in 2024.
Announcing Sinwar’s death on December 29, Hamas said he was Def’s successor.
(Reporting by Nidal Al-Mughrabi; Writing by Tala Ramadan; Editing by Olivier Holme and Michael Giorgi)
