PLO mourns ‘martyrdom’ of Hamas chief Sinwar, hails him as a ‘great national leader’

The Palestine Liberation Organization, seen internationally as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, expresses its condolences on the “martyrdom” of Hamas terror chief Yahya Sinwar and calls for unity among all Palestinian factions.

“The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) expresses its condolences to the Palestinian people and all national factions on the martyrdom of the great national leader Yahya Sinwar, head of the political bureau of Hamas,” a statement by the committee says.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, which controls the PLO and Palestinian Authority ruling over the West Bank, has had a tense relationship with Hamas since the latter violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and removed all Fatah officials from the coastal enclave after Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005 from the entire Strip.

Sinwar was the architect of Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians and took 251 hostages.