I was working late on Thursday night when a newsflash popped up, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had potentially been killed in Gaza in a military operation. As I checked through news pages seeking further information, the Israeli Defence Forces had reported that a person fitting the appearance of Sinwar had been killed and the IDF were investigating.

The death of terrorist Yahya Sinwar would be a boost for Israel, the architect of the October 7 terrorist attack is a major win for Benjamin Netanyahu who vowed to eliminate Hamas leadership and dismantle their military capabilities in Gaza. Sinwar was believed to be hiding with hostages as human shields in the tunnels in Gaza. So it will be interesting to learn how Sinwar was separated from his human shields and eliminated by IDF personnel. There are still more than 100 hostages being held for over a year in Gaza; hopefully, a step forward to securing their release.

Internally, Hamas leadership had been fighting with hardliner Sinwar believing Palestinian deaths are necessary to destabalise and defeat Israel. The Palestinian people are nothing to Sinwar, they are just collateral to be abused to achieve his objectives. Then, there are others in Hamas who believe they can achieve some political legitimacy by preserving Palestinian lives to achieve a Palestinian state in Israel. Sinwar had been the leader in Gaza since 2017 after Ismail Haniyeh had been killed and then took charge of the the political bureau after Ismail Haniyeh was assasinated in Tehran in July.