Israel kills another terror leader, U.S. says it’s time to give up
Tunnel where Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar stayed in the Tel al-Sultan area in the Gaza Strip. Credit: IDF
By Jason Shvili
(FLAME) — On Oct. 16, an Israel Defense Forces patrol killed arch-Hamas terror leader Yahya Sinwar in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip that Western nations pressured Israel to stay out of. Sinwar was the architect of the Oct. 7 massacre — the worst atrocity committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Sinwar’s murderous credentials didn’t stop media, social platforms and fellow terrorists from hailing him as a hero. Unsurprisingly, the Biden-Harris administration and other Western leaders took the opportunity to call again for an immediate ceasefire — trying to stop Israel’s momentum so its goal of destroying Hamas cannot be achieved.
Sinwar was no hero. He was a genocidal terrorist who brutalized not just Jews, but also fellow Palestinians. He spent more than two decades in an Israeli prison and continued his brutality after being released, ruling the Gaza Strip ruthlessly with an iron fist.
In recent months, Sinwar hid like a rat in Hamas’s vast tunnel system as ordinary impoverished Gazans suffered the horrors of war. He was killed not fighting but on the run from the IDF. In short, he lived as a coward and died as one.
In no case is Sinwar’s death cause for a ceasefire. Indeed, the West’s soft-diplomacy approach towards Iran and its terrorist proxies, including Hamas, has invariably failed.
As usual, the U.S. watchword is “regional stability,” meaning Israel’s enemies may remain alive to attack again. Yet Israel and many military experts agree that the time is riper than ever to complete the job with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Since Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, approved of Sinwar’s killing, they now use his death as an opportunity to pressure Israel again to stray from its military strategy and retreat. Israel, having chalked up successive victories against Iran and its proxies, is naturally inclined to stay its course.
When U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Jerusalem last week, he tried once more to pitch Israel’s government on laying down arms, but it flatly rejected his tired arguments. Indeed, it’s time for the United States to move back to the winning side of Middle East history.
Sinwar was neither a hero nor a freedom fighter. He earned the nickname, the Butcher of Khan Yunis, not for fighting Israel, but for brutally torturing and killing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Jewish state. In 1988, Israel sentenced him to four life terms for orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he considered collaborators.
Sinwar spent 22 years in prison, continuing his reign of terror by torturing fellow inmates. He was one of the thousand prisoners released in 2010 in exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas had abducted four years earlier. Sinwar subsequently returned to Gaza, where he ruled in the same fashion as other Arab dictators, tolerating no dissent. Like other Hamas leaders, Sinwar got rich off the impoverished Gazans; his net worth was estimated at between $1 billion and 3 billion.
On Oct. 6, anticipating Israel’s response to the massacre that was to come the following day, Sinwar hid in his luxury tunnel, stocked with food and humanitarian aid meant for civilians, weapons and a stash of millions in cash. He hid in comfort, not caring about the horror that Gazans above ground were about to suffer. In fact, he considered their deaths necessary for defeating Israel.
Sinwar died hiding, not fighting. After his death, the Iranian military posted on X saying, “Yahya Sinwar was a hero with a young heart who fought the Zionist regime until his last breath and bullet.” Wrong. Sinwar spent the war hiding in tunnels, using several Israeli hostages as human shields. After these hostages were starved to the point where they could no longer accompany him, they were murdered. Eventually, Sinwar had to come to the surface as the IDF destroyed the tunnels he hid in.
Many who saw the film of Sinwar’s last moments made much of the fact that his last act was to throw a stick at the IDF drone used to track him. This was an act of desperation, not heroism. When the IDF patrol found Sinwar, he was hiding under three blankets, like a small child hiding from “monsters” under his bed. Newsweek reported, “He had the pocket litter of a bum — a pack of Mentos, tissues, some money and a fake passport with the occupation listed as an employee of UNRWA,” the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. As Israel Hayom’s Yehuda Shlezinger wrote, Sinwar “wasn’t a great fighter, more of a cowardly flea.”
The West uses Sinwar’s death as an excuse to promote its tired, bankrupt ceasefire solution. While the Biden-Harris administration praised Israel for killing Sinwar, they immediately called for an end to the war. Biden said that Israel should “move on,” while Vice President Kamala Harris remarked, “This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war.” Other Western leaders followed suit. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, for example, said: “The answer is diplomacy, and we must make the most of this moment.” On the contrary, Western nations simply misunderstand Israel’s existential mission: Destroy the threat of its decades-long enemy.
A ceasefire today makes no sense. Hamas’s demands — cessation of Israeli military operations in Gaza, the complete withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners — have not changed, despite of Sinwar’s death. Israel has never agreed to these conditions and never will. Even worse, Hamas never agreed to release all the hostages.
Why should Israel agree to a ceasefire when it is so close to destroying Hamas in Gaza for good? It would be as if the Allies agreed to a ceasefire with the Nazis upon reaching the gates of Berlin.
The elimination of Sinwar doesn’t mean the war is over. As John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, said: “They (Hamas) still exist as a terrorist organization. They’re still in Gaza. They’re still holding hostages.” Thus, it makes greater sense for Israel to continue its relentless military pressure on and degradation of the terrorist organization.
The West is making a mistake to insist on its failed soft-diplomacy strategy in the Middle East. The situation would end better if the West were to abandon its failed soft-diplomacy strategy and support Israel’s successful offensive against global jihad — or at least step out of Israel’s way and let it finish the job.
Originally published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East. Jason Shvili is a contributing editor at FLAME, which publishes educational messages to correct lies and misperceptions about Israel and its relationship to the United States.
