Report: Sinwar ordered suicide bombings renewed after taking power, has been cast as ‘megalomaniac’ by Hamas officials
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar ordered the terror group’s leaders in the West Bank to renew suicide terror attacks in Israel shortly after he replaced the slain Ismail Haniyeh as head of Hamas’s politburo, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing unnamed Arab intelligence officials.
The order was given shortly before a failed suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, the report says. Some senior Hamas members reportedly have reservations about the decision, but have not been speaking up on the matter since Sinwar took power.
The practice was commonplace during the bloody Second Intifada in the early 2000s, as well as in the 1990s, but has become rare since Israel built a security barrier around the West Bank and boosted its intelligence-gathering methods to thwart such plots.
The Wall Street Journal report also confirms previous reports that Sinwar has recently renewed contact with ceasefire-and-hostage deal mediators, citing unnamed Arab officials involved in the mediation.
The outlet says it has viewed a handwritten letter by Sinwar from last month, saying Hamas is ready for a prolonged war of attrition to “break Israel’s will” and pave the way for the Jewish state’s demise.
The report paints a story in which Sinwar is an extremist figure even among the ranks of the Palestinian terror group, having refused last year to travel out of Gaza for reconciliation talks with rival Palestinian factions due to fears Haniyeh would unseat him during this time.
It says Sinwar surprised even other Hamas members overseas with the timing of the October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel, citing unnamed current and former Arab and Israeli officials.
This prompted Hamas officials in Qatar to privately call Sinwar a “megalomaniac,” the report says, adding that Sinwar has recently been talking about the current war and his own role in it in “increasingly grandiose terms.”
After Haniyeh’s assassination in July, Hamas political officials had reportedly suggested former leader Khaled Mashaal as his successor, before the Sinwar-led military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, sent a message that Sinwar must be picked.