Yahya Sinwar helped start the Gaza war. Now he is the key to its ending.

After Hamas attacked Israel in October, sparking the war in Gaza, Israeli leaders described the group’s highest-ranking official in the territory, Yahya Sinwar, as a “walking dead man.” Viewing him as the perpetrator of the raid, Israel made Mr. Sinwar’s assassination the main target of its brutal counterattack.

Seven months later, Mr. Sinwar’s survival symbolizes the defeat of Israel’s war, which has devastated much of Gaza but left Hamas’s top leadership largely untouched and inescapable. most of those arrested in the October attack.

Even when Israeli officials sought to kill him, they were forced to negotiate with him, albeit indirectly, to free the remaining hostages. According to Hamas, Israeli and U.S. officials, Mr. Sinwar emerged not only as a strong-willed commander but also as a shrewd negotiator who prevented Israel’s battlefield victory. Israel while attracting Israeli envoys to the negotiating table. Some spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Mr. Sinwar’s sensitive intelligence assessments and diplomatic negotiations.

According to some officials, while negotiations were being brokered in Egypt and Qatar, it was Mr. Sinwar – believed to be holed up in a network of tunnels beneath Gaza – who was chosen by US negotiators. Hamas demands consent before it agrees to any concessions.

Hamas officials affirmed that Mr. Sinwar did not have the final say in the group’s decisions. But although Mr. Sinwar does not technically have authority over the entire Hamas movement, his leadership role in Gaza and his strong personality have given him outsized importance in the way he operates. Hamas’s actions, according to allies and enemies alike.

“It cannot be brought up,” said Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Hamas member and political analyst who befriended Mr. Sinwar when they were both jailed in Israel in the 1990s and 2000s. any decision without consulting Sinwar.” “Sinwar is not an ordinary leader, he is a powerful man and an architect of events. He is not some manager or director, he is a leader,” al-Awawdeh added.

Mr. Sinwar has rarely been heard from since the war began, unlike Hamas officials based outside Gaza, including Ismail Haniyeh, the movement’s highest-ranking civilian official. Although nominally subordinate to Mr. Haniyeh, Mr. Sinwar played a central role in Hamas’s behind-the-scenes decision to maintain a permanent ceasefire, American and Israeli officials said.

Waiting for Mr. Sinwar’s approval often slows down negotiations, according to officials and analysts. According to US officials and Hamas members, Israeli attacks have damaged much of Gaza’s communications infrastructure and it sometimes takes a day to get messages to Mr. days to receive a response.

To Israeli and Western officials, Mr. Sinwar, in the course of negotiations, which again stalled in Cairo last week, has emerged as a brutal foe and a skillful political operator, with ability to analyze Israeli society and appear to adjust its policies accordingly. .

As the architect of the October 7 attack, Mr. Sinwar devised a strategy that he knew would provoke a fierce Israeli reaction. But according to Hamas’ calculations, the deaths of many Palestinian civilians – those who do not have access to Hamas’s underground tunnels – are the cause. necessary costs change the status quo with Israel.

According to people familiar with the intelligence, US and Israeli intelligence agencies spent months assessing Mr. Sinwar’s motives. Analysts in both the US and Israel believe that Mr. Sinwar is primarily motivated by a desire to take revenge on Israel and weaken it. Intelligence analysts say the well-being of the Palestinian people or the establishment of a Palestinian state appear to be secondary.

Understanding of Israeli society

Mr. Sinwar was born in Gaza in 1962 to a family that fled its homeland, along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinian Arabs who fled or were forced to flee during the wars surrounding the creation of the state of Israel.

Mr. Sinwar joined Hamas in the 1980s. He was later jailed for killing Palestinians he accused of apostasy or collaborating with Israel, according to Israeli court records from 1989. Mr. Sinwar has been imprisoned held for more than two decades before being released in 2011, along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians. in exchange for an Israeli soldier Arrested by Hamas. Six years later, Mr. Sinwar was elected leader of Hamas in Gaza.

While in prison, Mr. Sinwar learned Hebrew and developed an understanding of Israeli culture and society, according to former inmates and Israeli officials who followed him in prison. According to Israeli and American officials, Mr. Sinwar now appears to be using that knowledge to sow division in Israeli society and increase pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

They believe that Mr. Sinwar timed the release of videos of some Israeli hostages to incite public anger against Mr. Netanyahu during a critical period of ceasefire negotiations.

Some Israelis want the remaining hostages released even if it means agreeing to Hamas’s demand for a permanent ceasefire to keep the group – and Mr. Sinwar – in power. But Netanyahu has reluctantly agreed to end the war, partly because of pressure from some of his right-wing allies, who have threatened to resign if the war ends without disruption to Hamas.

If Mr. Netanyahu had accused of prolonging the war for personal gain, so did his nemesis, Mr. Sinwar.

Israeli and American intelligence officials say Mr. Sinwar’s strategy is to keep the war going until it damages Israel’s international reputation and damages its relationship with the country. The main ally of this country is the United States. As Israel faced intense pressure to avoid launching an operation in Rafah, Hamas fired rockets last Sunday from Rafah toward the nearby border crossing, killing four Israeli soldiers.

If this was a gamble by Hamas, it appears to have paid off: Israel began an operation last week on the edge of Rafah, and it was against this backdrop that President Biden issued his strongest criticism yet. on Israeli policy since the war began. Mr. Biden said he would pause some future arms shipments if the Israeli military begins a full-scale invasion of the city’s urban core.

Project an image of unity

Hamas and its allies deny that Mr. Sinwar or the movement are trying to inflict more suffering on Palestinians.

“Hamas’ strategy is to end the war now,” said Ahmed Yousef, a former Hamas fighter based in Rafah. “To stop the genocide and killing of the Palestinian people.”

US officials said Mr. Sinwar showed contempt for his colleagues outside Gaza, who were not informed of the exact plans for Hamas’ attack on October 7. American officials also believe that Mr. Sinwar approved of military operations conducted by Hamas, although Israeli intelligence officials said they were uncertain about the extent of his involvement.

A senior Western official familiar with the ceasefire negotiations believes that Mr. Sinwar appeared to make the decision jointly with his brother, Muhammad, a senior military leader of Hamas, and that throughout the war , he sometimes disagreed with Hamas leaders outside Gaza. While outside leaders were sometimes more willing to compromise, Mr. Sinwar was less willing to make concessions to Israeli negotiators, the official said, in part because he knew he was likely to be killed even if whether the war ends or not. .

Even if negotiators reach a ceasefire agreement, Israel will likely pursue Mr. Sinwar for the rest of his life, the official said.

Hamas members have presented an image of unity, downplaying Mr. Sinwar’s personal role in decision-making and arguing that Hamas’s elected leadership collectively determines the movement’s trajectory.

Some say that if Mr. Sinwar plays a larger role in this war, it is largely because of his position: As leader of Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Sinwar has a greater say, though not was the final call, according to Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official based in Qatar.

“Sinwar’s opinion is important because he is on the ground and is leading the movement from within,” said Abu Marzouk, the first leader of the Hamas political office in the 1990s.

But Mr. Haniyeh has “the final say” on important decisions, Mr. Abu Marzouk said, adding that all of Hamas’s political leaders have “a point of view.” Mr. Haniyeh could not immediately be reached for comment.

However, according to Mr. al-Awawdeh, his friend in prison, there was something unusual about Mr. Sinwar’s strong personality. Other leaders may not have instigated the October 7 attack, Mr. al-Awawdeh said, but preferred to focus on technocratic governance issues.

“If someone else had been in his position, things might have gone more smoothly,” he said.

Mr. Sinwar himself could not be reached for comment and has rarely been contacted since October. US and Israeli officials said Mr. Sinwar was hiding near the hostages, using them as human shields. An Israeli hostage was released during a ceasefire in November said she had met Mr. Sinwar during her imprisonment.

In February, the Israeli military released a video it said soldiers had taken from security cameras they found in a Hamas tunnel beneath Gaza. The video shows a man rushing down the tunnel with a woman and child.

The army said the man was Mr. Sinwar, who was on the run with his family.

This claim cannot be verified: The man’s face is turned away from the camera.