Yahya Sinwar tells senior Hamas operatives to revive suicide bombings as terror group’s ‘megalomaniac’ October 7 mastermind pushes it down more radical path

Yahya Sinwar has urged Hamas operatives to revive suicide bombings as the mastermind behind the terror group’s October 7 massacre takes the terror group down an even more radical path.

The Hamas leader, 62, who is increasingly viewed as a violent “megalomaniac” by senior officials within the group, has ordered West Bank commanders to renew suicide bombings in Israel as he replaces slain Ismail Haniyeh as head of the organization, the Wall Street Journal reports. .

The chilling order was given shortly before a failed suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in August, the report said, citing unnamed Arab intelligence officials.

Several senior Hamas members reportedly had reservations about the decision but have chosen not to speak out against the practice since Sinwar claimed power.

In the past week alone, Hamas has claimed two separate shooting attacks in Israel: one in Tel Aviv that killed seven people and one in Beersheba that killed a female Israeli soldier.

Now Sinwar is pushing his more violent view of Hamas as the Israeli army closes in on the terror group in Gaza amid the ongoing conflict.

While Hamas officials in Doha publicly praised the Oct. 7 attack, behind closed doors they began criticizing Sinwar as a “megalomaniac,” according to Arab and Hamas officials.

Haniyeh and others spoke about Sinwar in “no uncertain terms,” Ehud Yaari, an Israeli columnist who interviewed Sinwar in prison, told the Journal.

“That he made a mistake, that he is a political amateur.”

The report quoted unnamed current and former Arab and Israeli officials as saying Sinwar even surprised other Hamas members abroad with the timing of the October 7, 2023 attack.

This prompted Hamas officials in Qatar to privately call Sinwar a “megalomaniac,” the report said, adding that Sinwar recently spoke in “increasingly grandiose terms” about the current war and his own role in it.

After Haniyeh’s killing in July, Hamas political officials reportedly proposed former leader Khaled Mashaal as his successor, before Sinwar-led military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, sent a message that Sinwar should be picked.

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The Journal report also confirmed earlier reports that Sinwar recently renewed contact with ceasefire and hostage mediators, citing unnamed Arab officials involved in the negotiations.

The newspaper claimed it had seen a handwritten letter from Sinwar last month in which the terror leader said Hamas is ready for a protracted war of attrition to “break Israel’s will” and prepare the way for the country’s demise.

The report said the letter quoted the Quran: “And they ask: ‘When will that be?’ Say, ‘Perhaps it will happen soon.’

Shortly after Sinwar claimed control of Hamas, he ordered the relaunch of the suicide bombings to Zaher Jabarin, a Hamas fundraiser who recently took over responsibility for the West Bank from another Hamas leader killed in an Israeli airstrike. the newspaper said.

In his latest video message, Tel Aviv suicide bomber Muna summarized Sinwar’s zero-sum approach to the fight against Israel, using the motto of Hamas’s armed wing.

“It is Jihad, victory or martyrdom,” he said.

Sinwar had spent decades in an Israeli prison after being convicted in 1989 of kidnapping and executing two Israeli soldiers.

Sinwar is known as the ‘Butcher of Khan Younis’ for his enthusiastic execution of Palestinians alleged to have collaborated with Israel. He was released from prison as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas in 2011.

Always considered a hardliner within Hamas, he is infamous for his key role in establishing Hamas’s military wing and security services, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and Majd, which carried out numerous terror attacks against Israelis before October 7.

It comes as the head of Hamas was spotted in black and white footage uncovered by IDF forces during a raid earlier this year, showing a man believed to be Sinwar making his way through a tunnel along with his wife and three children, while carrying a large bag.

‘That bag contains about 25 kg of dynamite. There are at least 20 hostages around him,” said Kobi Michael, Sinwar’s former Shin Bet interrogator.

“We’ve had a chance to kill him a few times, but if we do, he’ll kill all the hostages around him.”

It is believed that approximately 97 hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023 are still in Gaza a year later. It is not known how many people died in captivity.

In a year of retaliation for Hamas’ cross-border terror attack, brutal Israeli bombing of Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 people, the Hamas-led Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military said it hit more than 40,000 targets, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites during its yearlong bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Sinwar is unrepentant about the Oct. 7 attacks, people close to him say, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, devastated his homeland and wreaked havoc on ally Hezbollah.

The list of Hamas leaders killed in the months since includes Mohammed Deif, the head of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, who was killed in an airstrike on Gaza.

Saleh al-Arouri, one of the founders of the al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an explosion in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and part of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ Iran.

Then in July, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was blown up, most likely by Israel, while visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of the Iranian president.