1. Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar was a Palestinian militant and politician who served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from August 2024, and as the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from February 2017, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh in both roles.
Yahya Sinwar was killed in a clash with the IDF in October 2024.
Yahya Sinwar finished his studies at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he received a bachelor's degree in Arabic studies.
In 1989, Yahya Sinwar was sentenced to four life sentences in Israel for orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he considered to be collaborators.
Yahya Sinwar spent 22 years in prison until his release among 1,026 others in a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Yahya Sinwar was one of the co-founders of the security apparatus of Hamas.
Re-elected as Hamas leader in 2021, Yahya Sinwar survived an assassination attempt by Israel that same year.
Yahya Sinwar is widely regarded as the mastermind behind the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, which was followed by the Gaza war that spilled over to other parts of the Middle East.
Hamas and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have been designated terrorist organisations by the United States, the European Union, and other countries and, in September 2015, Yahya Sinwar was specifically designated a terrorist by the United States government.
Yahya Sinwar's family were forcibly expelled from Majdal Asqalan, now known as Ashkelon, during the Nakba, and sought refuge in the Gaza Strip.
Yahya Sinwar, discussing his refugee upbringing, tied it to his Hamas involvement in conversations with fellow prisoners during his later imprisonment.
Yahya Sinwar was first arrested in 1982 for subversive activities and he served several months in the Far'a prison where he met other Palestinian activists, including Salah Shehade, and dedicated himself to the Palestinian cause.
Yahya Sinwar's killing of suspected collaborators with Israel gained him the nickname "The Butcher of Khan Younis".
Academic expert on Hamas Khaled Hroub said Yahya Sinwar is "widely respected as a great organizer", and that claims of his alleged ruthlessness had not been proved.
In 1988, Yahya Sinwar planned the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians whom he suspected of cooperating with Israel.
Yahya Sinwar was sentenced to four life sentences in 1989.
Yahya Sinwar regarded extracting confessions from collaborators as a righteous obligation.
Yahya Sinwar, respected for his resourcefulness among fellow inmates, attempted multiple escapes, including digging a hole in his cell floor to tunnel under the prison.
Yahya Sinwar collaborated with Hamas leaders outside, smuggling cellphones into the prison and using visitors to relay messages.
Yahya Sinwar mastered Hebrew through an online program and extensively studied Israeli news to comprehend his adversary better.
Yahya Sinwar meticulously translated Hebrew autobiographies of former Shin Bet chiefs into Arabic, sharing them with fellow inmates to study counterterrorism tactics.
Yahya Sinwar referred to himself as a "specialist in the Jewish people's history".
Yahya Sinwar alternated as emir with Rawhi Mushtaha, a confidant, during his imprisonment, serving as emir in 2004.
In 2004, Yahya Sinwar, displaying symptoms like standing for prayer then falling and drifting in and out of consciousness, complained of neck pain.
Yahya Sinwar asked the Muslim officer guarding him to thank the dentist and to explain to him the significance of his life-saving surgery in Islam and how he felt indebted to him for saving his life.
Yahya Sinwar rarely interacted with Israeli prison authorities, but he began regular meetings with the dentist.
Yahya Sinwar, who knew the Qu'ran by heart, articulated Hamas' beliefs, emphasizing its religious stance on the land.
Yahya Sinwar dismissed the possibility of a two-state solution, asserting the land belonged to Muslims.
Yahya Sinwar emphasized Hamas' demand for rights from the Israeli leadership, not control of the entire town.
Yahya Sinwar played a pivotal role in the negotiations for Gilad Shalit's release.
Yahya Sinwar was the most senior Palestinian prisoner released to Gaza among 1,026 others in the 2011 prisoner exchange for the soldier.
In November 2012, during the 2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar met Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani in Tehran and after his 2017 election as the group's leader in Gaza he cultivated closer cooperation between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
Yahya Sinwar was the political representative of the Qassam Brigades when the Brigades' Zeitoun Battalion commander Mahmoud Ishtiwi was accused of embezzlement and other "moral violations".
In February 2017, Yahya Sinwar was secretly elected the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, taking over from Ismail Haniyeh.
Yahya Sinwar elevated his former prison associates alongside him, with Rawhi Mushtaha serving as the head of Hamas's Gaza government, and Tawfiq Abu Naim helped him to establish an internal security force feared by locals.
Yahya Sinwar rejected any reconciliation with Israel, and was said to have been dedicated to its eradication, seeing military confrontation as the only path to "liberating Palestine", and saying that this would be achieved "by force, not negotiations".
Yahya Sinwar strengthened Hamas's military wing, and called on militants to capture more Israeli soldiers.
In September 2017, a new round of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority began in Egypt, and Yahya Sinwar agreed to dissolve the Hamas administrative committee for Gaza.
Yahya Sinwar was said to have silenced hard-line voices in Gaza, ordering against the use of tunnels that Mohammed Deif wanted to use to sneak fighters into Israel before they were shut down by new classified Israeli technology in 2017.
On 16 May 2018, in an unexpected announcement on Al Jazeera, Yahya Sinwar stated that Hamas would pursue "peaceful, popular resistance" to the Israeli occupation, opening the possibility that Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organisation by many countries, may play a role in negotiations with Israel.
On 1 December 2020, Yahya Sinwar tested positive for COVID-19 and was reportedly following the advice of health authorities and taking precautionary measures.
In March 2021, Yahya Sinwar was elected to a second four-year term as the head of Hamas in Gaza.
Yahya Sinwar started bypassing Hamas's influential Shura council and kept the Doha-based senior leadership partially uninformed about his activities.
Yahya Sinwar spent the next hour in the streets of Gaza taking photos with the public.
Yahya Sinwar sought to convince Iran and Hezbollah to participate in the attack or in a broader conflict with Israel, aiming to cause its 'collapse'.
Israeli intelligence presumed Yahya Sinwar was hiding in a complex system of tunnels beneath Gaza and was surrounded by hostages acting as human shields.
Yahya Sinwar reportedly visited the hostages in the early days of the war promising they would not be harmed.
When one of the hostages, Yocheved Lifshitz, said Yahya Sinwar should be ashamed of himself, he was silent.
Yahya Sinwar said that high civilian casualties and the suffering of civilians in Gaza led to international pressure on Israel giving Hamas the upper hand in negotiations.
Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesperson, denied the report, stating that Yahya Sinwar never made such comments and was instead focused on ending the conflict swiftly, calling the circulated statements "completely incorrect".
Yahya Sinwar held this position for over 2 months until his own death on October 16,2024.
The Economist report indicated that Yahya Sinwar's election made a ceasefire less likely as he represented Hamas's most extreme faction.
Yahya Sinwar's leadership consolidated Hamas's alignment with Iran and its resistance to diplomatic negotiations.
Yahya Sinwar carried out most of his military operations in Rafah, where he would conceal his face with a blanket to avoid detection, sometimes planning attacks in the vicinity of Israeli soldiers or within homes that previously had presence of Israeli soldiers.
Yahya Sinwar refused, telling Arab mediators that he was on "Palestinian soil".
Yahya Sinwar recommended that, in case of his death, Hamas appoint a council of leaders to govern and manage the transition following his death.
On 21 November 2011, Yahya Sinwar married Samar Muhammad Abu Zamar.
Yahya Sinwar's wife received a master's degree in theology from the Islamic University of Gaza.
On 17 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet said they were looking into whether Yahya Sinwar was among three individuals killed in an operation in Gaza the previous day, though neither Israel nor Hamas officially confirmed his death at that time.
Yahya Sinwar's body was found dressed in military fatigues and a kuffiyeh, and grasping an AK-47.
An Israeli pathologist reported that Yahya Sinwar sustained injuries to his right forearm from missile fire, his left leg from "fallen masonry", and his body from shrapnel, before being shot in the head, resulting in his death from "severe traumatic brain injury".
The IDF confirmed through DNA analysis that Yahya Sinwar had been killed a day earlier in Gaza during a firefight with the IDF.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the killing of Yahya Sinwar "is not the end of the war in Gaza," but he said that Yahya Sinwar's death marked the beginning of a new era without Hamas's rule over Gaza.