UPDATE: The verification is almost complete. From the Times of Israel:
Channel 12 publishes what it says is a police document showing that one of the identification tests conducted earlier today regarding the body of a dead terrorist, apparently on the basis of photographic dental comparisons, found a “full match” to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
This is amazing, and, given reports that the head of Hamas was scuttling around Gaza’s tunnels surrounded by hostages (and a bunch of explosives to blow them all up if the IDF tried to get Sinwar), it’s doubly striking—as well as heartening. Click to read from the Times of Israel: (it’s also reported in the NYT):
From the ToI:
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday it was working to confirm that one of three terrorists its forces had killed in Gaza was Hamas terror chief Yahya Sinwar, as a senior Israeli official said it was very likely that a body found at the scene was that of the October 7 mastermind.
The official said that the security establishment assesses that there was a “high likelihood” that the terrorist killed by the IDF was Sinwar.
“At this time, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed,” the IDF said in a statement.
However, since the IDF is very cautious about these things, the “high likelihood” statement carries some weight. There’s a bit more:
Hebrew media reports said the IDF troops were not targeting Sinwar and did not know he might be in the building where they were operating.
The army noted that there were no hostages present in the area where the three terrorists were killed. There have been reports that Sinwar has been hiding among hostages throughout the war, using them as human shields.
“The IDF and Shin Bet forces operating in the area continue to operate under the necessary caution,” the army said.
The terrorists were killed when troops opened fire on a group of combatants on the ground floor of a Gaza building in an incident that began on Wednesday.
A strike was ordered against the building, which partially collapsed the structure. When the soldiers subsequently entered the building, they realized that one of the dead terrorists “looked very much like” Sinwar.
If it was Sinwar, it is serendipity, and the fact that no hostages were present in the area is fantastic. The NYT adds this:
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was assessing whether Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and a mastermind of last year’s Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel, had been killed. Eliminating Mr. Sinwar has been a major goal of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, and his death would be a watershed in almost 13 months of fighting that have reshaped the Middle East.
The military released no further details. But four Israeli officials said the military was taking the body of a slain militant to a laboratory in Israel in order to assess whether its DNA matches that of Mr. Sinwar, who is in his early 60s. Three of the officials said the militant had been killed on Wednesday in a firefight with Israeli soldiers.
For months, Mr. Sinwar has escaped Israeli efforts to find and kill him, even as many of his top allies — including much of the leadership of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s former political leader — have been assassinated.
Mr. Sinwar’s death, if confirmed, could raise hopes for an end to the conflict in Gaza, by encouraging Hamas to agree to Israeli demands or by providing Israel with a victory that could push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ease its negotiating stance. Hamas and the Israeli government have remained far apart on key issues during months of negotiations over a truce.
Here is a photo from the Polish website balconik.com showing the match of Sinwar’s teeth when he was alive (left) with the teeth of the body (other gruesome bits omitted). It’s a pretty good match. (You can see more photos, some you might find disturbing, here.)
This is the best chance yet for an end to the war–assuming that Hamas will fold given that both its political and military leaders have been killed by the IDF. I would hope that Hamas would surrender unconditionally and release all the hostages, as they have no credible leadership.
As an addendum, remember that Sinwar (now 61) was an Israeli prisoner, doing a life sentence for multiple murder of both Israelis and Palestinians suspected of collaboration. He got a brain tumor, and an Israeli doctor saved his life by removing it. He was then released in a prisoner swap when over a thousand Palestinian terrorists were exchanged for a single Israeli soldier, Gilat Shalit. No matter that an Israeli doctor saved his life, for Sinwar vowed to kill him and his countrymen after release.
This is still a developing story, but I am optimistic that, if true, this portends an end to the war in Gaza and the release of the hostages. Fingers crossed!
Fingers crossed indeed! Kind of horrified I am rooting for someone’s death, but well deserved in his case.
I know. I would have preferred for him to be captured and given life WITHOUT PAROLE, but then he could be traded away again. And the way Israeli prisons work, you can organize terrorism from within them.
No you wouldn’t, professor.
This has been tried. Gilad Shalid (sp?) exchanged for Sinwar a decade ago.
Pals have moved to a place where if we institute the better, moral code they’ll take advantage. Bc they’re terrorists. Shalid taught us what Israel knew before that which was NEVER, but never EVER, negotiate with terrorists.
They changed the rules (in about 1928) and we must play by their rules in a sad race to the bottom.
“War is the common cry, pick up your swords and fly.”
– Battle of Evermore, Led Zepplin
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
Hallelujah!
The larger shot photos are even more convincing than the teeth, particularly the ears. Ears are a central forensic signifier used by many governments, including our own. Pictures for green cards (used to) have to be at an angle to show one’s ear. The theory is ears are harder to fake and change. Sinwar’s alive ears match the corpse very closely.
The totality of the other various ID points – and his macho watch – in the larger photos have convinced me 99% that the rat is dead.
Happy Day!
Killing the “top guy” in a terrorist org is immensely important for killing enemy morale and in low trust hierarchies like terror orgs where vital info is very siloed often only the guys at the top can keep it running. This is in contrast to democracies where everybody is replaceable, with various redundancies built in.
Critics (analyst Ali Soufan, et al) argue that there is still an Al Qaida, and an ISIS, but neglect to consider the immense damage to the prestige a boss shot does. Terrorist orgs, unlike democracies, rely on coercion and charisma for all their political power. And the fear they engender and front page news they attract, in the west. MANY people will think “Hamas is a spent force now. Over.” Which defeats the fear of them in the west – their main weapon.
Hamas isn’t eff’d completely, for sure, but this is a massive blow.
AND robs the Pals of the “win” of him scuttling out from the rubble after any ceasefire as a national hero. Plus the horror of a deal where his survival is linked to the hostages’ freedom.
D.A.
NYC
Excellent points. What we can expect next is for the “Gaza Health Ministry” to
retroactively confer the status of “hospital” or “school” on whatever building Sinwar was killed in, which BBC and NPR will then add to their news bulletins.
They’ll hold days of mourning for a peacemaker.
And the hospital was mainly puppies and kittens, and babies who were doctors.
Lost a hero of the resistance I guess, a champion of decolonization.
What utter-a-holes! Complete scum. The ENTIRELY discredited BBC, NPR etc. Al Jazeera with keening British women. So contemptable and morally upside down.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
And expect a laudatory obituary from outlets like BBC and the NY Times.
Give them all the martyrdom they claim to desire. As quickly as possible.
Look at his lower teeth, left side (from the viewer’s vantage point). From back to front, his dental arcade curves inward (lingually, toward the tongue) before curving outward near the front. It has an unusual S-shape. Both pictures match.
My guess (and it is only a guess) is that Hamas (post-Sinwar, if the reports of his death are correct) will trade the hostages for safe exile (probably to Qatar). Hamas won’t unconditionally surrender. They should, but won’t. My guess (and it is only a guess) is that his death (assuming it is true) will have considerable impact in Tehran.
I suspect there are underlings who would be eager to take his place and, if needed, martyr themselves. They are probably falling over each other to be the next martyr. A fanatic group like this will not behave logically. I will bet $100 that there will be no surrender, no hostage deal, and no exodus.
This is a win-win bet for me; it would make me happy to be wrong.
I hope that Mossad will be able to find out who the promising candidates are, and grant their wish for martyrdom swiftly and unbureaucratically.
Hmmm. . . I will think about this!
We would need to set some closure date; any suggestions?
When the U.S. calls the shots, you get Afghanistan and Ukraine. When the U.S. is ignored, you get dead terrorists and the annihilation of Hamas.
Hamas is not annihilated. Deep pockets in the region will fund its rebuilding or fund a replacement group. This is a good day for shorter-term objectives, but too soon to celebrate the death of anti-Israel terrorism. Sorry to be a wet blanket.
I think you are right.
If Israel decides to target Iran’s oil shipping facilities, its deep pockets will run empty pretty quickly.
Yes, Richard. But some finesse is needed. I’d love to see Kharg Island and Abadan refinery go up in smoke and with it all those Yuan Iran gets from its oil.
But we don’t want to drag our soon to be allies in the Gulf into a war. Long term Israel can’t win without acquiescence of the larger Sunni coalition.
Israel would be better served by whacking scientists and blowing up their ATMs or something. Plus it is cooler.
best,
D.A.
NYC
I think the complication to that is that oil and gas prices will rise, and there will be much grumbling because of that.
Sad but true.
If true, perhaps this is a moral universe bending toward justice moment.
The cantankerous in me noticed the following sentence from the Times excerpts: “For months, Mr. Sinwar has escaped Israeli efforts to find and kill him, even as many of his top allies — including much of the leadership of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s former political leader — have been assassinated.” So I looked up the word “assassinated” to discover that the most commonly used definition/synonym from the two first sources that came up was “murder”. Wish the NYT had selected a different word than this carefully chosen editorialized descriptor.
I think even in war assassination is a legitimate term for a targeted killing of a specific individual. It doesn’t carry moral opprobrium on its own. We talk of the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, for example. In Sinwar’s case, it might not be appropriate only because his death seems to have been a serendipitous accident, with his identity only discovered afterwards.
When an enemy carrying arms or wearing the uniform of his country is killed, no matter how, by the military of the other side he is regarded as killed in action, not murdered (unless he was trying to surrender.) So agree, assassination is not apt. It should be reserved for killings — typically of non-combatants — that the agent’s own government regards as crimes but orders anyway….or for the familiar private attempts to kill someone illegally for a known or presumed political purpose (as with Hitler.)
Many of the admirable features of assassination: creativity, effort, meticulous planning, conspiracy, flawless execution, and the dismaying trust-breaking that results in the target’s circle of confidants show up in the dispatching of Israel’s armed enemies to their celestial rewards. This may be why writers reach for assassination even without meaning opprobrium. But they shouldn’t.
Ironically the origin of the word is Arabic to describe targeted sectarian religious killings traditionally using sleeper agents.
We may be in for tragedy, facing the awful reality of the low number of hostages still alive.
Damn the NYT for still banging about “negotiating” a “truce.” The top guy is (probably) dead, like Hitler in the bunker, and the Times thinks the remnants of Hamas have any negotiating position to work from? Who’s going to step up and claim that he got made 2-i-C just before the roof caved in and now speaks for the rest of the rats? Can he even contact them? Does anyone even know where the remaining hostages are?
I subscribe to NYT. Still I think “Damn the NYT” is a complete sentence.
It’s now officially confirmed.
Great news
You ought to hear the crying and gnashing of teeth over in the FreeThoughtBlogs backchannel.
Anyway, did you hear about that Oakland coffee shop that was in the news recently because on their menu they had an iced tea called “Sweet Sinwar”? I guess they might have to rename it to something less fresh…
Backchannel ululation – that’s the icing on the cake!
I didn’t know they had sunk that low. Like, who actually mourns the death of a bona fide top terrorist/ brutal dictator? And why?
Imagine what happens to the first middle-management Hamas fighter who suggests an “Unconditional surrender”??? I doubt any of them would have the guts to do it but, if they did, they wouldn’t have them for long!
This is excellent news! One dead Sinwar means many more live innocents!
So what will the Israelis do with what’s left of him after forensics? Suggest doing the same as Allied forces did with the hanged Nuremburg defendants, to prevent a grave becoming a monument for a future neo-Hamas: Cremate under a pseudonym, pour the ashes in a river, stamp the cannisters flat and toss onto a scrap heap.
You mean, spread his ashes from the River to the Sea?
It’s hard to believe that nobody on the Israeli side had any idea that he was in that building. I don’t doubt that the troops that fired on the building knew, or the commanders who directed them to target that building, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone higher-up directed those commanding those troops to have a look at that building.
Was it easier to get a sense of his whereabouts after the pagers exploded? Did maybe US or German intelligence pick up on his whereabouts and relay that information? If there was US involvement, was the information traded for some restraint for now in going after Iran’s assets?
In any event, if Sinwar’s demise disrupts Hamas enough to allow the Israelis to back off to some degree for the next three wks and get other things in the news besides Gaza, that ought to be good for Harris.
I doubt it. If you were a commander who had received information about the whereabouts of the guy the whole army has been chasing for a year, and who is suspected to use hostages as human shields and is presumably protected by elite bodyguards, would you send in your troops without letting them know what they might be in for? That would be almost criminally negligent.
You make a good counterpoint. However, as I understand it, they just pulled up in a tank and fired at the house, which collapsed. I guess a lot would depend on whether there was any sense that no hostages were with him.