A man born in a ghetto under brutal occupation defeated an empire.
#sinwar
https://x.com/kristo279/status/1926239724139643182

🇮🇱 ISRAEL | 🇵🇸 GAZA
🔴 Israel Targets Hamas Leader Sinwar in Gaza Strike

🔸 Israeli forces hit underground command site near European Hospital, aiming at Sinwar.
🔸 Gaza Health Ministry: 6 killed, over 40 injured.
🔸 Israel says confirming Sinwar’s death may take days.

#Israel #Gaza #Hamas #Sinwar #MiddleEast #IDF

when will it be enough? do they really want to just rule over the ashes just to say they are in charge and enslaver of the earth?

...all they can even imagine is deep depravity, perversion of all, and the butchering of children and people who dare stand in defense of innocent humanity against them...

#missyouguys #sinwar #abuhamza #STOPKILLINGUS #freePalestineNOW

#Sinwar -Dokumente enthüllen Szenarien für die Beseitigung Israels

Briefe ranghoher #Hamas -Mitglieder enthüllen deren Bemühungen, Finanzierung und Unterstützung für den „Grand Battle“-Plan der #Terrororganisation zu sichern.

#Israel

https://www.israelheute.com/erfahren/sinwar-dokumente-enthuellen-szenarien-fuer-die-beseitigung-israels/
#Hamas #Bestien #Gazastreifen #Terroristen

https://archive.is/he2Pc Or Levy's Brother: #Hamas Starved the Hostages, Remaining Men Won't Survive Captivity
Tal Levy, whose brother was released after 491 days, expected Or to return skinnier, but not like this. 'I saw a #Holocaust survivor,' Levy says. He reveals that #Israeli officials told him months ago that #Sinwar ordered the starvation of the male #hostages. 'If they knew, there's no way #Netanyahu didn't' #freethemall #FreeThemNow

Now that the #ICC has issued arrest warrants for #Netanyahu and #Gallant along with the former #Hamas leader #Sinwar who was assassinated by #Israel.

Should world leaders and ministers are not only facilitating this #genocide but also supplying the weapons to carry out these #WarCrimes also be arrested? #Gaza #Palestine #USPol #UKPol #EUPol #UNSC #UN

[followup] Anatomy of a Media Manipulation Scandal

Ynet’s Ronen Bergman has more information concerning #Bild's deputy editor Paul Ronzheimer and Leaked Hamas Document.

Netanyahu's office cultivated a relationship with Bild newspaper, particularly through its deputy editor Paul Ronzheimer and political correspondent Philipp Piatov. The relationship involved "compensatory perks" including exclusive interviews with Israeli President Herzog and National Security Advisor Hanegbi, and privileged IDF access.

[…] The Prime Minister's Office invested most of its resources in maintaining a relationship with the newspaper's deputy editor, Paul Ronzheimer, a prominent German journalist. Military sources say that every time he visited Israel, the PM's Office would put heavy pressure on the IDF spokesperson to give him preferential treatment, arrange interviews, and ensure he was first among German journalists - and among the first foreign journalists in general - to enter the Gaza Strip immediately after the war began.

[…] In #Israel, he received interviews with senior officials, including two with President Isaac Herzog and a podcast with National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi - far more access than most journalists receive, even from media outlets considered more important to Israel.

The German journalists, unfamiliar with Arabic (according to Ynet’s writer), published a distorted version of the document to support #Netanyahu's narrative against the hostage deal protests. French newspaper Libération's fact-checkers later revealed that Bild's reporting had grossly misrepresented the document's content and falsely attributed it to #Sinwar.

Hebrew https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/syu700cpmke

@israel
@palestine
#GazaGenocide
#IsraelWarCrimes
#PaulRonzheimer

Le bâton de Yahya Sinwar par Luk VERVAET
https://www.legrandsoir.info/le-baton-de-yahya-sinwar.html
L'image de Sinwar, vêtu d'un keffieh, couvert de poussière, avec un bras blessé ou sectionné, dans un bâtiment en ruine, lançant un bâton sur le drone qui le filme, dans un dernier acte de défi, n'a laissé personne indifférent. Sinwar est mort comme il avait vécu, en tant que chef de la résistance, fidèle à la cause palestinienne jusqu'au bout. Le bâton de Sinwar est devenu un symbole de la cause palestinienne, la métaphore de la persistance de la résistance dans la lutte (…) / , ,
#Politique #Israël #Palestine #Sinwar,Yahya

I wrote this poem to honour the memory of Yahya Sinwar.

The news of his martyrdom completely challenged the Israeli-US imperial narrative that he hid, surrounded by hostages and human shields, hoarding all the aid.

Instead he died fighting on the front lines. He hadn't eaten in three days.

The poem uses a non-traditional rhyming scheme and the iambic pentameter isn't perfect.

@palestine

#Palestine #FreePalestine #YahyaSinwar #Sinwar #Gaza #Gazagenocide #poetry #poem

#Desinformationen / #FakeNewsErwischt

#Palästina:
#Trauerflor in #UNRWA -Logo gilt nicht #Hamas -Chef #Sinwar, sondern getöteten Mitarbeitenden
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2024/11/04/palaestina-trauerflor-in-unrwa-logo-gilt-nicht-hamas-chef-sinwar-sondern-getoeteten-mitarbeitenden/

An autopsy conducted by Zionist forensic doctors found that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had not eaten for three days before his assassination on October 16th.

According to ‘Israel’ Hayom, the report said: “The results of the autopsy of Yahya Sinwar’s body showed that he did not eat anything during the last 72 hours before his death.”

Chen Kugel, director of the regime’s national forensic institute, revealed that one of Sinwar’s fingers was removed to obtain a DNA sample for identification due to his prior imprisonment and existing medical record.

These details provide further evidence that the US and Zionist regimes actions have contributed to a war of starvation in Gaza, and clearly prove Hamas is not responsible for diverting food aid.

Furthermore, the report undermines the reactionary claims that Sinwar was hiding, or cowering from the cowardly Zionist forces. In actuality, Sinwar died confronting the occupation, face to face, even as the head of the Hamas politburo. He fell a martyr in a similar fashion to iconic revolutionary hero Che Guevara.

Sinwar was appointed leader of Hamas’ political bureau in August, a week after the assassination of his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh in a brazen, and heinous Zionist attack while he was on an official visit to Iran.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/11/05/autopsy-reveals-hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-went-three-days-without-food/

#alAqsaFlood #gaza #hamas #palestine #resistance #sinwar #westAsia

#palestine
#sinwar
#resistance
@palestine

"The autopsy of Yahya Al-Sinwar, the martyred leader of the Hamas resistance movement, who was assassinated by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, showed that he had spent three days without any food before his martyrdom"

Not much else on this article, but I thought I'd share anyway.

https://en.irna.ir/news/85648949/Sinwar-his-men-had-not-eaten-for-3-days-before-assassination

Dieser Artikel stammt von CORRECTIV.Faktencheck / Zur Quelle wechseln

Faktencheck

Palästina: Trauerflor in UNRWA-Logo gilt nicht Hamas-Chef Sinwar, sondern getöteten Mitarbeitenden

Nach dem Tod von Hamas-Chef Yahya Sinwar verbreitet sich im Netz die Behauptung, das UN-Hilfswerk für Flüchtlinge aus Palästina habe als Zeichen der Trauer einen schwarzen Balken im Profilfoto auf X hinzugefügt. Das ist falsch, der Trauerflor ist dort seit Monaten zu sehen.

von Max Bernhard

04. November 2024

Das Hilfswerk der Vereinten Nationen für Palästina-Flüchtlinge im Nahen Osten, UNRWA, habe seinem Profilbild auf X nach dem Tod des Hamas-Chefs Yahya Sinwar einen schwarzen Balken hinzugefügt, um seine Trauer auszudrücken.

Quelle

Falsch
Über diese Bewertung

Falsch. Der schwarze Balken ist bereits seit Oktober 2023 auf den Profilbildern der UNRWA auf X zu sehen, nicht erst seit der Ermordung Sinwars. Laut einer Sprecherin soll er den Mitarbeitenden gedenken, die während des Konflikts im Nahen Osten getötet wurden.

Am 16. Oktober 2024 tötete das israelische Militär den Chef der Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, in Rafah im Süden des Gazastreifens. Er galt als Stratege des Massakers vom 7. Oktober 2023 bei dem in Israel rund 1.200 Menschen durch Mitglieder der Terrororganisation getötet wurden.

Nach dem Tod Sinwars, heißt es in Beiträgen auf X, Facebook und Threads, das Hilfswerk der Vereinten Nationen für Palästina-Flüchtlinge im Nahen Osten, UNRWA, habe seitdem als Zeichen der Trauer einen schwarzen Balken in seinen Profilbildern auf X. Beiträge mit der Behauptung verbreiten sich auch auf Englisch und erzielen teils zehntausende Aufrufe.

Doch das Hilfswerk UNRWA hatte den schwarzen Balken mindestens seit einem Jahr in seinem Profilbild – er hat nichts mit dem Tod Sinwars zu tun.

UNRWA fügte schwarzen Balken spätestens im Oktober 2023 hinzu 

Mit Internetarchiven wie der Wayback Machine oder Archive Today lassen sich alte Versionen von Webseiten nachsehen – auch für Profile in Sozialen Netzwerken. Eine Suche in der Wayback Machine zeigt, dass der schwarze Balken bereits am 19. Oktober 2023 im Profilbild von UNRWA auf X sichtbar war. Auf Facebook fügte UNRWA seinem Profilbild den schwarzen Balken schon am 11. Oktober 2023 hinzu.

Auch in den Wochen vor Sinwars Tod war der Trauerflor im Profilbild auf X weiterhin zu sehen, wie auf Archive Today zu sehen ist. Es ist daher unwahrscheinlich, dass er zwischenzeitlich entfernt und nach Sinwars Tod wieder hinzugefügt wurde.

Nachdem sich die Behauptungen zum Tode Sinwars und dem UNRWA-Profilbild verbreitet hatten, erklärte die Sprecherin der Organisation, Juliette Touma, am 18. Oktober 2024 auf X, dass der Trauerflor hinzugefügt worden sei, um an verstorbene Kolleginnen und Kollegen zu erinnern. Bisher seien in dem Konflikt 230 Mitarbeitende von UNRWA getötet worden.

Neun UNRWA-Mitarbeiter wegen möglicher Teilnahme an Attentat vom 7. Oktober 2023 entlassen

Einige Nutzer nehmen die Behauptung zum Anlass, dem Hilfswerk UNRWA vorzuwerfen, eine Terrororganisation zu sein. Diese Anschuldigung erhebt auch die israelische Regierung.

Die Vereinten Nationen gaben im Februar 2024 eine Untersuchung in Auftrag, um die israelischen Vorwürfe, dass UNRWA-Mitarbeiter an den Terroranschlägen auf Israel am 7. Oktober 2023 beteiligt gewesen seien, zu überprüfen. Der im April veröffentlichte sogenannte Colonna-Bericht fand keine Belege für systematische Verbindungen zwischen UNRWA und Terroristen. Er stellte außerdem fest, dass das Hilfswerk UNRWA Israel regelmäßig Listen seiner Mitarbeiter zur Überprüfung vorgelegt hatte. Die israelische Regierung habe UNRWA demnach „seit 2011 nicht über irgendwelche Bedenken in Bezug auf UNRWA-Mitarbeiter auf der Grundlage dieser Listen informiert“. Laut dem Bericht verfüge UNRWA über ein „ausgeprägteres Neutralitäts-Konzept“ als andere ähnliche UN-Einrichtungen und NGOs.

UNRWA erklärte im März, dass einige Mitarbeiter, die aus israelischer Haft in den Gazastreifen entlassen wurden, nach eigenen Angaben von den israelischen Behörden unter Druck gesetzt wurden. Sie sollten demnach fälschlicherweise behaupten, dass das Hilfswerk Verbindungen zur Hamas habe und Mitarbeiter an den Anschlägen vom 7. Oktober beteiligt gewesen seien. Im August entließen die Vereinten Nationen neun UNRWA-Mitarbeiter, weil sie möglicherweise an den Attentaten beteiligt gewesen sein könnten.

Am 28. Oktober 2024 stimmte das Parlament in Israel dafür, die UNRWA zu verbieten. Die Entscheidung wurde von der deutschen Bundesregierung und international kritisiert.

Redigatur: Matthias Bau, Sarah Thust

Zur Quelle wechseln
Author: Max Bernhard

https://www.bachhausen.de/palaestina-trauerflor-in-unrwa-logo-gilt-nicht-hamas-chef-sinwar-sondern-getoeteten-mitarbeitenden/

#hamas #nicht #palastina #sinwar #sondern #trauerflor #unrwa

Just listened to a report about #sinwar. Apparently he beat off a #zionist drone with a stick. After throwing hand grenades at the #diaperforce. One handed. Because a tank shell took one arm.

My dude was more #rambo than Sly could possibly portray.

I am reminded of how we westerners have so many fake heroes like spider man and such. In #palestine they have real legends walking. Makes you think.

#fromtherivertothesea
#gaza

"Não nos esqueçamos: não foi sobre #Sinwar do #Hamas, e nunca sobre 7 de outubro ou os reféns.

É sobre uma história de 80 anos de #LimpezaÉtnica e #Grilagem de #Terras." - Dr. Mustafa Elmasri, em #Gaza, 🇵🇸 #Palestina -

https://bsky.app/profile/arrudalo.bsky.social/post/3l6rmutcwpr2i -

Via ‪‪@arrudalo.bsky.social‬ - #Massacre -

PAL-Awda statement on the martyrdom of Sinwar

Yahya Sinwar, Abu Ibrahim, Chair of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, lived a hero and died a legend. PAL-Awda NY/NJ and the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation join with all Palestinians and oppressed people across the region and the world to honor the martyred leader, whose name will go down in history as a symbol of resistance and liberation.

The oppressors of the Palestinian and Arab people call him a “terrorist,” a “fanatic,” an “extremist.” So say the mass murderers in Tel Aviv and their paymasters and armorers in Washington. So say lying US politicians, including both big-party presidential candidates, and the lying corporate media. This is how the oppressors have always described those who resist their tyranny-Nat Turner, John Brown, Sitting Bull, James Connolly, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, so many more.. This is what the Nazis called the Jewish freedom fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. So the zionists and their funders have called the many martyred leaders of Palestine.

These are the words of those who wage a war of extermination against the people of Palestine and Lebanon, who burn children to death or shoot them in the head or starve or maim them. Despite the assassinations of Sinwar, Nasrallah, Haniyeh, and Shukr, the zionists have continued their genocidal campaign, proving to the world time and time again that their only goal is the complete occupation of Palestine and the annihilation of the Palestinian people.

They have massacred hundreds in the camps of north Gaza in just the three days since Abu Ibrahim rose to martyrdom. This very day they have wiped out an entire neighborhood in Beit Lahia, murdering over 100 people. These crimes get no word of concern from US politicians and media, for they themselves are the perpetrators.

To Palestinians, Abu Ibrahim was a hero, a freedom fighter. His life was the very embodiment of the Palestinian cause, of the right to exist and to return and live with peace and freedom in their own land. He lived his life in service to that cause, and in that cause he was martyred.

Like so many Palestinians, Yahya Sinwar was born and raised in Khan Younis refugee camp, in the giant open-air prison called the Gaza Strip. His family was forced there when Zionist gangs destroyed their home town of Al Majdal in 1948. The Zionist settler colony of Ashkelon was built on its ruins.
Sinwar was 5 when zionist forces occupied Gaza. He was 19 when they first imprisoned him. In 1988, he was sentenced to four life sentences for organizing armed resistance to the brutal occupation.

During his 22 years in the enemy’s dungeons, Hamas, the movement he helped found, forced the occupiers to withdraw from Gaza and won the Palestinian general elections. This was the Palestinian people’s answer to the betrayal of Oslo. In 2011, the Resistance won his release and that of 1000 others from the cells of the occupier.

Sinwar was named the leader of Hamas on August 6, 2024, following the assassination of the movement’s political bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

While this is a moment of mourning for us globally, it is also a moment to recognize the dismantling tentacles of the zionist entity, and the weakening of its colonial project. On October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian Resistance broke through the prison gates surrounding Gaza, they destroyed the world’s perception of the israeli occupation forces as an invincible army. Since then, the Palestinian Resistance has been holding its ground in Gaza, despite the billions of dollars in funds and weapons funneled into the genocide by the U.S.

Yahya Sinwar, leading the resistance, embodied the spirit of our collective struggle until his last breath. In his final moments, despite heavy bleeding, with a hand nearly severed, draped in a kuffiyeh and combat gear, Sinwar stood defiant in the face of sadistic occupation, hurling a piece of wood at the israeli drone. His final moments dispelled zionist propaganda that the leadership of our resistance is hiding in tunnels while their people endure genocide. Instead, the world saw him fighting until the very end, defending his land and his people.

Sinwar’s martyrdom, like that of the leaders who came before him, will inspire countless others, igniting a new generation of fighters who will rise in his name.

PAL-Awda NY/NJ

source: Struggle la Lucha

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/10/29/the-legacy-of-palestinian-resistance-leader-yahya-sinwar/

#guerrilla #hamas #palestine #resistance #sinwar #westAsia

Despite the best attempts of the Zionists to present the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a tactical victory, as a feat of its intelligence gathering and military capabilities, the truth presents the contrary. Yet, as is always the case with the deaths of leaders to their movements, there is an element of loss.

While the news of Yahya Sinwar’s death this Thursday came as an immediate psychological blow, causing debate and despair, much of the initial impact of the news was undone when the story of how he was killed emerged. Putting on display the misguided hubris, the Zionist military’s video of Sinwar’s last moments ended up robbing them of the tactical victory they so greatly desired.

The Israelis dismantle their own lies

When the Zionist entity publishes propaganda, it does so with the hopes of targeting three separate audiences: The first is a settler audience; the second is a Western audience; in addition to the third audience, who are the Palestinians and people of West Asia. Releasing the video of Yahya Sinwar’s last moments represented a desperate attempt to score points with an Israeli audience alone, displaying complete ignorance of what the drone footage shows to people who exist outside of the hermetically sealed Zionist mindset.

To a regular audience, who have borne witness to the genocide in Gaza over the past 12 months, they saw a leader of a resistance against a colonial entity’s invading forces fighting until the very last breath. The Zionist entity’s propaganda machine had spent the past year attempting to claim that Yahya Sinwar was hiding away in a fortified tunnel, surrounding himself with the Israeli captives as his human shields, eating well as his people starved. All of this propaganda was debunked on Thursday.

Yahya Sinwar was wearing a tactical vest and was fighting on the front lines when he died. Zionist forces engaged in a clash with him and his companions, before calling in tank strikes. An injured Sinwar had lost part of his right arm and his trigger fingers off his left hand, reportedly throwing grenades at Zionist soldiers. The drone footage shows him sitting on a chair inside a bombed-out building, incapable of defending himself with anything more than a stick of wood, which he defiantly threw towards the Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle during his final moments.

In contrast to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who runs to bunkers when sirens blare and who has his son tucked away in Miami Florida living in luxury, Yahya Sinwar died on the frontlines in battle. When the general public and especially the Arab World came to understand what occurred, there is no wonder why the death of the Palestinian leader was seen as honorable.

This was the view of many Westerners too, which is being explained as “support for Hamas” by the corporate media, Zionists, and Western politicians. The reality is that this interpretation has little to do with Hamas and everything to do with the global public watching a video of a Palestinian leader dying on the frontlines while resisting a genocide against his people. Just as Che Guevara’s execution in Bolivia was also received as honorable and heroic, even to those who may not have agreed with him, his final iconic moments are cemented in history, along with his famous words of defiance: “I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!”. Sinwar’s death was received as was Guevara’s, symbolic of a struggle against injustice.

In Palestine and across West Asia, Yahya Sinwar’s death was interpreted as that of a hero.

What Yahya Sinwar’s death means

To begin with, the way the Hamas leader’s death was interpreted is a massive element to its strategic viability to the Zionists and this is why it was the first point that I began by addressing.

The killing of a leader has two primary purposes for the Zionist regime, that is the propaganda effect and the practical implications. On the propaganda front, Yahya Sinwar’s death should have been a psychologically tide-changing moment for the Zionists. They had struggled since Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes on October 1 to seize back the strategic initiative and had failed, until this new opportunity fell in their laps.

What is interesting, however, is that due to the supremacist mindset of the Zionists, working in conjunction with the lack of discipline among their soldiers, the opportunity for presenting Sinwar’s killing as a tactical victory was squandered. Why? Because the Zionist troops on the ground leaked the news, along with the images and videos of Yahya Sinwar, before the army could craft any narrative. This robbed them of a falsified story that could have attributed Sinwar’s death to a complex military operation.

Yahya Sinwar was not assassinated, he died in battle, so there is no believable way that the Zionist regime can present it as a victory, rather it is a defeat. Why a defeat? Because in over a year of all-out war against Gaza, the Zionists couldn’t even locate Yahya Sinwar and even had to spread rumors that he had been killed various times before he actually died.

Making it even worse for themselves, they couldn’t help but publish the video of Yahya Sinwar in his last moments, which was an enormous strategic mistake that lost them the propaganda battle instantly. While impressing their own domestic Zionist audience is the priority for them, the story will be meaningless to them all in a week. Valuing their own public opinion and publishing the video at the expense of losing the propaganda war against their opposition, is born out of pure supremacist thinking.

This all being said, the death of Yahya Sinwar does represent a clear blow in a number of respects. His role in helping the formation of the Islamic Resistance Movement predates Hamas itself, as Sinwar was a companion of the group’s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. In the mid-1980s Yahya Sinwar was integral in forming the security apparatus for the Mujamma al-Islamiya [the precursor group to Hamas]. What also made him unique was his ability to maneuver within the Palestinian political scene, due to his connections with other Palestinian political parties and movements. More importantly, he worked to serve interconnectivity between the political bureau of Hamas and its armed wing the al-Qassam Brigades.

Sinwar was also an excellent public speaker and possessed the ability to deliver the kinds of inspiring and spirit-lifting speeches that the late Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah would give. Between 2017 and 2021, his image was raised to the level of an icon, who embodied the spirit of resistance against the Zionist entity for the Palestinian resistance movement also.

These qualities noted above made him uniquely valuable to not only Hamas, but also the entire Palestinian political scene. Therefore, his death represented a definite blow to Hamas in these ways. However, his killing will have little short-term impact on the course of the armed struggle against Zionist invading forces. In addition to this, historically Hamas has shown that it is more than capable of not only absorbing such blows, but actually coming back stronger in the long run.

Instantly, upon receiving confirmation that Yahya Sinwar had been killed, the Western corporate media and politicians began pushing the idea that this event would make a ceasefire/prisoner exchange possible. They also began to express hope that this would shift the view of Hamas on how to conclude the war. These analyses are wishful thinking, ignorant, and flat-out lies. The Zionist military and political elite have already expressed their intent to continue the war on Gaza, while the reason why there has been no ceasefire is that the Zionists continually add new irrational demands that they know cannot be granted.

What’s next?

Yahya Sinwar predicted, before October 7, that the upcoming war would last around a year before the Zionists would be forced to make a decision, either they sign a ceasefire and attempt to secure a so-called “two-state” solution, or, enter into a regional war that will lead to their destruction. We aren’t about to see the Zionists concede defeat and sign a ceasefire, so it is inevitable that this war will be solved through a war across multiple fronts.

The Zionists often like to seize the opportunity to continue pursuing the strategic initiative and the killing of Sinwar is something that they will likely attempt to use to change the tide against the resistance on a psychological level. However, the question here is whether they are capable of doing this through carrying out assassinations and other kinds of actions, aimed at securing tactical and momentary victories. If they aren’t, we will likely just see a series of civilian massacres which will achieve the same desired propaganda effect, but will reveal weakness on their behalf.

source: Al Mayadeen

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/10/25/what-are-the-implications-of-yahya-sinwars-death/

#alAqsaFlood #gaza #hamas #palestine #resistance #sinwar

#Arab/#Muslim vote for #Trump is betting with armageddon #Sinwar-style: readying to become a 'welcome sacrifice' to be eventually eliminated en masse

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/24/kamala-harris-arab-american-muslims-michigan/

Yahya Sinwar was a man who became a larger-than-life symbol of Palestinian resistance and struggle. Myths and rumors surrounded him in life and now in death but he did not need anyone, friend or foe, to tell his story for him.

Originally published in Electronic Intifada .

Since the founding of the organization, the lives of Hamas leaders have ended in martyrdom at the hands of the Israelis: Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, Ismail Haniyeh , and now Yahya Sinwar , all understood this.

Palestinian resistance organizations are built to withstand the deaths of their leaders, whose speeches frequently invoke martyrdom.

Yahya Sinwar was no exception. In many appearances, Sinwar expressed that there were things worth dying for: the country, the movement, principle and faith. Quoting Imam Ali, Sinwar said  in a speech: “There are two days in a person’s life. The day when death is not your destiny, and the day when death is your destiny. On the first day, no one can harm you, and on the second day, no one can save you.”

He also said  that he feared dying of a heart attack or coronavirus much more than dying in battle.

Much of Sinwar’s biography – including the meanings he ascribed to the events in his life – can be gleaned from his novel, The Thorn and the Carnation . Written and smuggled out of the Israeli prison where Israel had planned for him to spend the rest of his life, it is full of insight into how Sinwar saw the world and the perspective from which he built up the resistance movement.

The most important character in his novel, Ibrahim, is born in the 1960s (Sinwar himself was born in 1962), and chooses to study in Gaza (like Sinwar, who studied literature at the Islamic University) and to stay in Gaza and struggle despite having the opportunity to study and make a life in exile.

Family life, campus life, religious life, work, prison and resistance life are the daily settings of the book. Characters belonging to different factions debate one another at length on the question of negotiation versus resistance. The narrator occasionally summarizes Israeli methods of infiltration and intelligence-gathering and provides insights into errors made by the resistance or details of operations.

The book was completed in 2004. Perhaps unsurprisingly, since its author was serving multiple life sentences, the novel reads like a work intended to be the legacy of a fighter, a document that could convey valuable experience to the next generation: from daily details of how the occupation works to what to expect when visiting a prison. Or how to comport yourself as a prisoner.

“Moral obligation”

Despite the plans of the Israelis, Yahya Sinwar did not die in prison and was one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed in a prisoner exchange deal in 2011.

He came to be Hamas’ leader in Gaza in 2017 and led his followers through tumultuous years of action. In 2018, in the context of the nonviolent Great March of Return that was crushed by Israel, he was interviewed  by Italian journalist Francesca Borri over the course of five days, outlining the reasoning and hopes Hamas had in a long-term ceasefire (a recurring theme of Sinwar’s political life).

“Have you ever seen Gaza pictures from the 1950s? When in summer everyone was coming here on holiday?” Sinwar asked the journalist.

“Around 45 percent of the population here is less than 15 years old,” Sinwar observed. “They don’t even know what is Hamas, what is Zionism. At night they walk by the sea and wonder what the world is like beyond the waves.”

Sinwar told Borri  about his obligation to the prisoners. “For me it is a moral obligation: I will try more than my best to free those who are still inside.”

In another important interview with Vice correspondent Hind Hassan after the 2021 war, Sinwar compared  the racism experienced by Black Americans to that experienced by Palestinians.

He returned to the theme of a long-term ceasefire, but reminded the interviewer , who criticized the rockets and accused Hamas of war crimes, that human nature compelled resistance.

“What are we supposed to do? Raise the white flag? That’s not going to happen,” Sinwar said. “Should we be well-behaved victims while we’re being massacred? Be slaughtered without making a noise? That’s impossible. We decided to defend our people with whatever weapons we have.”

At the end of the 2021 war, Sinwar famously dared  the Israelis to assassinate him, noting at a public press conference that he would walk to his home, a known location, and if they chose to target him, he was not hiding.

Upon arrival at home, he posed for an iconic photograph  sitting on a plush chair amid the wreckage.

Israel’s genocide has dispelled many long-held illusions about human rights, international law, freedom of expression, diplomacy, progressive politics, and professional ethics, all of which have proven to be subordinate to support for Israel in the West.

No surrender

Like many journalists this year, Seymour Hersh, an American reporter with a network of inside sources that enabled him to break the My Lai, Abu Ghraib, and Nord Stream stories over his long career, tarnished his own record to sell lies about Israel’s genocide.

Shortly after 7 October 2023, Hersh reported  to his readers that the al-Shifa hospital “has long been known by Israeli intelligence to be a Hamas redoubt and perhaps the last existing Hamas command-and-control center in Gaza City.” The ground war, Hersh said in November 2023, was “turning out to be a piece of cake” for Israel, “essentially won .”

But Yahya Sinwar had left the north, and “would likely surround himself with hostages in any final confrontation,” complicating the situation for the Israelis who wanted to kill him but, according  to Hersh, were concerned about the lives of these Israeli captives. “Israel is still trying to negotiate a way out for the hostages,” Hersh quoted  his Israeli insider saying, “but Hamas must surrender first and bring the hostages out.”

There was no bunker under al-Shifa. Yahya Sinwar was above ground battling the Israelis, not surrounded by hostages. And he did not surrender.

In the final scene of The Thorn and the Carnation, Ibrahim phones the narrator, Ahmad, and tells him that he’s seen a vision. “I saw myself fasting, and the Prophet Muhammad told me, ‘Your iftar is with us today, Ibrahim,’ as if awaiting me.” Ahmad knew what Ibrahim was implying, and became upset. Ibrahim calmed him down: “Do not shout, Ahmad. I am taking all precautions, but such an invitation cannot be declined.”

Ahmad’s feeling turned out to be right: Ibrahim was martyred by an airstrike on his car.

And so, after spending his youth in the resistance, resigning himself to a life in prison, miraculously being freed in a prisoner exchange, becoming the leader of the movement in Gaza, being credited with being the architect of the 7 October 2023 operation  – whose intent was to capture a large number of Israeli military prisoners to exchange for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners and fulfill his “moral obligation,” while placing Palestinian liberation back on the world’s agenda – Sinwar died in battle with the Israelis, like the main character of the novel he wrote.

He was not surrounded by hostages and he did not surrender – these turned out to be nothing more than calumnies written for him by his genocidal enemies. For those who wish to understand what he knew, they’re best ignored: Yahya Sinwar wrote his own story.

Justin Podur is the author of Siegebreakers , a 2019 novel in which Palestinians in Gaza win a war of liberation. He runs the Anti-Empire Project podcast  and YouTube channel , including the Gaza War Sit Rep series, with several videos on the military situation per week.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/10/24/yahya-sinwar-wrote-his-own-story/

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