Hamas leader in Gaza breaks arm in traffic accident – report

Palestinian site says Yahya Sinwar’s health is good, no suspicion of foul play

Michael Bachner is a news editor at The Times of Israel

The leader of the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, waves as he arrives for a meeting with the Palestinian Authority's prime minister and other officials in Gaza City on October 2, 2017. (AFP Photo/Said Khatib)
The leader of the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, waves as he arrives for a meeting with the Palestinian Authority's prime minister and other officials in Gaza City on October 2, 2017. (AFP Photo/Said Khatib)

Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas terror group’s leader in the Gaza Strip, has broken his arm in a traffic accident, a Palestinian report said Tuesday.

There was no suspicion the Monday incident was anything but a “normal” traffic accident, the Quds Press website reported, citing a source close to Sinwar.

The source added that the leader’s hand was currently in a splint, and that his health was good.

Sinwar, 55, has been Hamas leader since February 2017, when he replaced Ismail Haniyeh, who now leads Hamas’s political bureau.

Sinwar, sentenced to life in 1989 for murdering Palestinians who were thought to have collaborated with Israel, spent 22 years in Israeli prisons before being released in a 2011 prisoner exchange deal for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

In September 2015, Sinwar was added to the US terrorism blacklist alongside two other members of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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