By Ala @Adobe Stock
A Brutal Calculation
“We make the headline only with blood,” Yahya Sinwar reportedly told an Italian journalist.
Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza, admitted, “No blood, no news.”
“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” boasted Sinwar in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials, reports the WSJ.
Sinwar’s Brutal Calculation:
For months, Yahya Sinwar has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire-and-hostages deal with Israel. Behind his decision, messages the Hamas military leader in Gaza has sent to mediators show, is a calculation that more fighting—and more Palestinian civilian deaths—work to his advantage.
“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials.
Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas units in the Gaza Strip’s south has disrupted humanitarian-aid shipments, caused mounting civilian casualties and intensified international criticism of Israel’s efforts to eradicate the Islamist extremist group.
When confronted with the reports of gangs taking civilian women and children as hostages, Sinwar protested, “Things went out of control. People got caught up in this, and that should not have happened.”
Sinwar, who says Israel has no right to exist, has stuck to a simple playbook. Backed into a corner, he looks to violence for a way out. The current fight in Gaza is no exception.
Necessary Sacrifices
Sinwar believes Israel has no right to exist. The WSJ has reviewed dozens of messages transmitted to cease-fire negotiators, in which they highlight Sinwar’s cold disregard for human life.
Civilian Pawns
According to Palestinian officials, more than 37,000 have died since the start of the war. Most of the casualties have been civilians.
In an April 11 letter to Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh after three of Haniyeh’s adult sons were killed by an Israeli airstrike, Sinwar wrote that their deaths and those of other Palestinians would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”
Sinwar isn’t the first Palestinian leader to embrace bloodshed … to pressure Israel. But the scale of the collateral damage in this war—civilians killed and destruction wrought—is unprecedented between Israelis and Palestinians.
Although Israel has made a ferocious effort to kill Sinwar, he has survived and micromanaged Hamas’s war effort, drafting letters, sending messages to cease-fire negotiators and deciding when the U.S.-designated terrorist group ramps up or dials back its attacks.
Sinwar’s ultimate goal seems to be to win a permanent cease-fire that allows Hamas to declare a historic victory by outlasting Israel and claiming leadership of the Palestinian national cause.
Sinwar planned and greenlighted the 7 October attacks. Early messages to cease-fire negotiators, however, show he seemed surprised by the brutality of Hamas’s armed wing and other Palestinians, and how easily they committed civilian atrocities.
Sinwar looked to use Israeli hostages as bargaining chips to delay an Israeli ground operation in Gaza.
A day after Israeli soldiers entered the strip, Sinwar said Hamas was ready for an immediate deal to exchange its hostages for the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
But Sinwar had misread how Israel would react to Oct. 7. Netanyahu declared Israel was going to destroy Hamas and said the only way to force the group to release hostages was through military pressure.
Sinwar has urged Hamas not to make concessions and to push for a permanent end to the war. Sinwar is looking to create worldwide pressure on Israel. The armed wing of Hamas, according to him, is ready for the onslaught.
The Hamas leader has likened the war to a 7th-century battle in Karbala, Iraq, where the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad was controversially slain.
“We have to move forward on the same path we started,” Sinwar wrote. “Or let it be a new Karbala.”
