By GM

Yahya Ibrahim Hasan al-Sinwar; 29 October 1962 – 16 October 2024) was a Palestinian militant and politician who served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from August 2024, and as the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from February 2017, until his death in October 2024, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh [murdered by the Israelis secret service or military, or somebody else in Israel or outside of it, on July 31, 2024] in both roles.

Sinwar was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Egyptian-ruled Gaza in 1962 to a family who had been expelled or fled from Majdal ’Asqalan (modern Ashkelon) during the 1948 Palestine War [at the establishment of the State of Israel].

He finished his studies at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Arabic studies.[6] In 1989, Sinwar was sentenced to four life sentences in Israel for orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he considered to be collaborators. He spent 22 years in prison until his release among 1,026 others in a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

During his time in prison, Sinwar continued to coordinate the execution of Palestinians suspected of collaboration with Israel and planned the abduction of Israeli soldiers. Sinwar was one of the co-founders of the security apparatus of Hamas.

In 2017, Sinwar was elected as the leader of Hamas in Gaza and claimed to pursue ‘peaceful, popular resistance’ the following year, supporting the 2018-2019 Gaza border protests, though he is also reported to have been dedicated to eradicating Israel and is said to have seen military confrontation as the only path to ‘liberating Palestine’, saying that this would be achieved ‘by force, not negotiations’. He also developed strong ties with Iran. Re-elected as Hamas leader in 2021, Sinwar survived an assassination attempt by Israel that same year. He is widely regarded as the mastermind behind the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, which was followed by the Israel-Hamas war that spilled over to other parts of the Middle East.

Hamas and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have been designated terrorist organisations by the United States, the European Union, and other countries and, in September 2015, Sinwar was specifically designated a terrorist by the United States government. In May 2024, Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced his intention to apply for an arrest warrant for Sinwar for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as part of the ICC investigation in Palestine. Sinwar was killed on 16 October 2024, during a firefight with the Israeli military.”

“Gilad Shalit (Hebrew: גלעד שליט, Gilad Shalit; born 28 August 1986) is a former MIA [Missing in Action] soldier of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who, on 25 June 2006, was captured by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid via tunnels near the Israeli border. Hamas held him captive for over five years until his release on 18 October 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal.

During his captivity, Hamas rejected requests from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit Shalit, claiming that such visits could compromise his location. Several human rights organizations criticized this position, asserting that the conditions of Shalit’s confinement were in violation of international humanitarian law. The Red Cross stated, ‘The Shalit family have the right under international humanitarian law to be in contact with their son.’[3] In the early months, the sole means of communication was through an intermediary, who claimed that a low-ranking Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, asked him to convey to Shalit’s parents the assurance that Shalit was ‘alive and was treated according to Islam’s laws regarding prisoners of war. In other words, he had been given shelter, food, and medical care.’ The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict called for Shalit’s release in its September 2009 report.  In the G8’s Deauville Declaration of May 27, 2011, they demanded Shalit’s release.

Many sources have categorized Shalit’s capture as both a kidnapping and an abduction.  During his captivity, he was denied visits from the Red Cross and any communication with family members, both of which he was entitled to as a captured soldier under the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, his captors demanded a form of ransom, although not necessarily of a monetary nature, in exchange for his release. The only instances of contact between Shalit and the outside world during his captivity, prior to his eventual release, consisted of three letters, an audio tape, and a DVD. These were provided to Israel in exchange for the release of 20 female Palestinian prisoners.

Shalit was captured near the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel and was held by Hamas at an undisclosed location within the Gaza Strip. Hamas’ initial demands, which included the release of all female and underage Palestinians, as well as Marwan Barghouti, were not met. On 18 October 2011, Shalit was eventually released in a negotiated agreement, securing his freedom after more than five years in isolation and captivity. In exchange, 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were released, some of whom were convicted of multiple murders and carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians. According to Israeli government sources, these released prisoners were collectively responsible for 569 Israeli deaths.

Shalit became the first Israeli soldier to be captured by Palestinian militants since the incident involving Nachshon Wachsman in 1994. Shalit held the rank of Corporal in the IDF’s Armor Corps at the time of his capture, and he was subsequently promoted to Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, and Sergeant First Class just before his release. He holds dual Israeli and French citizenship, the latter via his grandmother.”

“Sinwar Power Grab Cements Hamas-Iran Ties. Yahya Sinwar oversaw the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and helped repair ties between his militant group and Tehran several years ago” (by Summer Said and Rory Jones for The Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2024):

“Hamas’s elevation of the Oct. 7 attacks’ architect, Yahya Sinwar, as its leader cements the militant group’s strategic ties to Iran, signaling a united front between Tehran and its axis of militias in a conflict with Israel and the U.S. […]”

“Hamas’s pick of Yahya Sinwar as leader makes a ceasefire less likely. The appointment of the architect of October 7th ties the group closer to Iran” (The Economist, August 6, 2024):

“If there was ever any doubt over where the balance of power lay within Hamas, it was surely vanquished on August 6th when the militant group named Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza and the architect of the October 7th attacks, as its supreme leader. The appointment sends a clear signal that Hamas’s most extreme faction is now in charge. This dims hopes of a ceasefire that might end a war that has already claimed nearly 40,000 Gazan lives. […]”

“Behind the scenes as Hamas chose its new leader” (by Rushdi Abualouf, BBC Gaza correspondent, for BBC News, August 8, 2024):

“Over the past week, watched by the world’s media, the top leaders of Hamas descended on Qatar to choose a new political leader for their group.

Delegates flooded in from across the Middle East after almost a year of fighting between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.

Some arrived shaken, having woken just days before to the news that the group’s previous political leader – Ismail Haniyeh – had been killed in a blast in Tehran, allegedly by Israel.

Haniyeh, who had overseen his group’s negotiators in talks with Israel, played a crucial role in Hamas, balancing the militant wing’s desire to take the fight to Israel with calls from some to reach a settlement and end the conflict.

His position, it was clear, had to be filled quickly.

At the mourning ceremony in Doha, Hamas leaders lined up shoulder to shoulder in a huge white tent with carpets and fancy chairs, decorated with pictures of Ismail Haniyeh. Hundreds of people gathered to pay their respects to the movement’s late leader and his bodyguard.

The scene was more than a memorial service – it signalled the end of an era and the beginning of a new, more extreme phase.

This was not the first time I had witnessed Hamas’s top officials gather to choose a new leader after an unexpected funeral. Back in 2004 I witnessed them meet after Israel assassinated the group’s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – the meeting taking place in his house in Gaza. Less than a month later, Israel killed his successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi.

But this time the backstage discussions reflected the extent of the crisis and challenges they are facing.

393 words in the entry for Yahya Sinwar, 494 words in the entry for Gilad Shalit.

For Yahya Sinwar: 21 assertions, 16 items referenced by 27 references – 0.05 assertions per word, 0.78 assertions per reference, 1.31 assertions per item, 0.59 items per reference.

For Gilad Shalit: 20 assertions, 13 items referenced by 24 references – 0.04 assertions per word, 0.83 assertions per reference, 1.54 assertions per item, 0.54 items per reference.

The assertions per word for Sinwar (0.05) and Shalit (0.04), respectively, have 1% difference, the larger rate being for Sinwar. The assertions per reference for Sinwar (0.78) and Shalit (0.83), respectively, have 5% difference, the larger rate being for Shalit. The assertions per item for Sinwar (1.31) and Shalit (1.54), respectively, have 23% difference, the larger rate being for Shalit. The items per reference for Sinwar (0.59) and Shalit (0.54), respectively, have 5% difference, the larger rate being for Sinwar.

Much more assertions are made per word – more spoken but less substance – for Yahya Sinwar. Less assertions per word are made for Gilad Shalit, but their substance is predictable – for sure, the type of “keywords” are sought to be expressed. The dramatic difference is in the area of assertions made per item or topic spoken about – on the surface, the speech is about something, but the actual talk is about much more, and that abounding in claimed “references”, and therefore clearly deceptive. That is in the case of Shalit.

Gilad Shalit is an honorary citizen of Paris, Rome, Miami, New Orleans, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, and this data is not included in the linguistic count. It is just something that is left there for the reader of the Wikipedia entry to consider – it makes “sense” to the same reader that if someone’s grandmother is a French Jewess, or French, they can be an honorary citizen of several important Western cities, which is supposed to mean a big thing in the Western paradigm. If somebody is snatched during their alleged patrol walk around Gaza and is a twenty-year-old male claiming to be Jewish and Israeli and a soldier, and disappears for five years with the assurance that he is alive, proven by three letters, a video and an audiotape before the age of instant messaging and picture-sending, achieved to be sent to his parents and relatives, and has a certain bed, food and medical treatment, he can become a hero and every Western city, and not only the named ones, can claim him for their honorary citizen. Gilad Shalit had as a present toward the thirteenth anniversary of his release from this “hero” title-invoking experience the death of Yahya Sinwar, given to Shalit being aged 38. One day shy of two weeks away from his 62nd birthday, Sinwar was assassinated, having someone like Gilad Shalit leave his three children under thirteen fatherless, yet the 26 years his junior Shalit’s similarly-aged children have their father, and not only the claim to the land of Palestine, which Sinwar never had because his parents left its part ruled by Israel in 1948, 14 years before he was born. He had no grandmother in France, wasn’t Jewish and didn’t want to be called an “Israeli Arab”. Clans and families pay a great price for not having the right grandmother somewhere in Paris or in French Polynesia, if not in “French Canada”, and not having any link to Israel, the Jews or Judaism! These people can simply die, having spent 22 years in an Israeli prison, not known exactly why there, since they had no link to Israel, as already said! They could have been left with a bed, food and medical care, as Muslims consider that applicable and satisfactory, in accordance with their religion! Why keep this man in an Israeli prison, when a similar, if not better, effect would have had leaving him in the underground tunnels in Gaza? The thought that he was alive would not have given the Jews and the Israelis sleep, and thirteen years after his release along with 1,026 other Palestinians, Yahya Sinwar was murdered! Do you see how much the life of one Israeli costs, measured in Palestinian lives? And the Israelis can sleep with that? It is beyond biblical – once upon a time, the first Israelite king, Saul, required 100 foreskins of Philistines from David for the hand of his daughter, Michal. But the then Philistines are not today’s Palestinians! And are today’s Israelis and Jews those of that time?

Anyone can appoint random people, real nobodies in terms of politics and journalism, to write for the American The Wall Street Journal and the British The Economist and BBC News, them being people linked with Great Britain and its “former” colonies, and these can write nonsense about Arabs, Iranians and other “undesirables” and “deplorables” in the “geopolitics” and “energy” columns of those outlets, and be gotten referenced in articles like the Wikipedia entry for Yahya Sinwar above. And nobody dares ask who is told to write about Gilad Shalit, and that for any outlet anywhere on earth, because the asking will be calling for a public inquiry into their existence, and information won’t be found anyway! Anyhow, some people’s names are found as referees for a Wikipedia entry on Gilad Shalit. But there is the science of linguistics, and everything is settled – the difference must be in the grandmother! Some names of referees on the “Arabs”, the “Iranians” and “other such” would be Summer Said, Rory Jones and Rushdi Abualouf. You may enjoy them and their writings!

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