EXCLUSIVE: Read the New York Times Obituary of Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar
Editor’s note: The Washington Free Beacon has exclusively obtained the final draft of the New York Times obituary for Yahya Sinwar. The Hamas leader and architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack is believed to have been killed Wednesday in a firefight with Israeli forces.
Yahya Sinwar, a formerly incarcerated novelist and scholar known for his mastery of the Quran and Semitic languages, was martyred Wednesday while resisting Zionist bullets with his formidable brain in the southern Gaza Strip. He was 61.
An Arabic Studies major and father of three, Sinwar assumed leadership of Hamas, the anti-colonial activist organization, in February 2017 and was promoted to chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau following the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024. A passionate planner, Sinwar spearheaded one of the most widely discussed hang-gliding excursions into the Palestinian territory sometimes referred to as “Israel” on Oct. 7, 2023.
Born in the Gaza Strip in 1962, Sinwar dedicated himself to the Palestinian cause and cofounded the Munazzamat al Jihad w’al-Dawa, commonly known as Majd, an anti-snitching collective known for its strict moral code and innovative interrogation techniques. He encountered the Zionist criminal justice system in 1989 and served 22 formative years in prison following his conviction for alleged crimes. While incarcerated, Sinwar taught himself Hebrew, extensively studied Jewish history, and authored a novel based on his life. Fellow inmates admired his resourcefulness and the zeal with which he continued to hold snitches accountable for their actions.
Sinwar became unhoused following the Zionist invasion of Gaza, but he continued to oversee resistance forces while residing in the Hamas tunnel network, widely renowned as a marvel of structural engineering. There, he cultivated a diverse group of companions, including a number of Jewish civilians visiting from the Occupied Territories.
The reformed inmate’s loss will be mourned with excruciating sorrow at America’s elite universities, where Sinwar was embraced as a symbol of anti-colonial resistance and beloved for his tenacious commitment to solving the Jewish Problem. “He had such a beautiful mind,” Ashlyn Croddy-Resnick, a sophomore feminist studies major at Columbia University, told the New York Times. “Now there’s a gaping hole. In his head, like, literally, but also in the world now that he’s gone. Peace be upon him.”