GAZA, (PIC)
The Hamas Movement has officially announced the martyrdom of its political bureau chief Yehya as-Sinwar during recent clashes with the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’s announcement about Sinwar’s death was read by deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau Khalil al-Hayya in a televised statement aired by Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Friday afternoon.
Sinwar died “confronting the occupation army until the last moment of his life,” Khalil al-Hayya, who was Sinwar’s Qatar-based deputy and represented Hamas during several rounds of ceasefire negotiations, said in mourning for the Palestinian leader.
“With all meanings of pride, dignity, and honor, Hamas mourns, to our Palestinian people, to our Arab and Islamic nation, and to the world’s free people, a man among the noblest and bravest — a man who devoted his life to Palestine and gave his soul to liberate it for the sake of Allah … Allah rewarded him by choosing him as a martyr, just as He did for his comrades who had been martyred before him,” Hayya said.
“We mourn the great national leader, the martyr and resistance fighter, Yehya as-Sinwar (Abu Ibrahim), Head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Commander of the al-Aqsa Flood battle” al-Hayya added.
“He ascended [to heaven] as a hero and a martyr, advancing without hesitation, his weapon in hand, engaging and confronting the occupation forces at the forefront of the battle lines. He moved between all the combat sites, steadfast and resolute on the land of Gaza, defending Palestine and its holy sites, inspiring a spirit of steadfastness, patience, and resistance,” Hayya said.
The Hamas leader also reiterated his Movement’s unwavering stance that Israeli captives in Gaza would never be released until there was a ceasefire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Yesterday, the Israeli occupation army circulated a video of Sinwar’s apparent last moments, in which he sits on a chair in severely damaged building, critically wounded, exhausted, and covered in dust. In the video, Sinwar raises his left hand and flings a stick at an approaching Israeli drone.
According to the Hebrew media, Israeli forces badly wounded and killed Sinwar in what appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops in Rafah on Wednesday, without knowing at first that it was him.
Sinwar was martyred with other comrades, according to media sources.
Yehya as-Sinwar was recently chosen by the Movement to be the head of Hamas’s political bureau, succeeding Ismail Haneyya, who was assassinated by an Israeli raid on his residence in the Iranian capital Tehran on July 31, 2024. Sinwar was previously the chairman of Hamas in Gaza.
Sinwar was born on October 19, 1962 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp after the Israeli occupation forces displaced his family from the City of Majdal Asqalan in 1948.
He was one of the key Hamas leaders and was close to the late Hamas leader and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
