Hamas chief and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar confirmed dead

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Thursday that Hamas leader and Oct.7 architect Yahya Sinwar was killed in an airstrike in southern Gaza after more than a year of eluding Israeli forces.“Eliminated: Yahya Sinwar,” the military announced on X.The Jewish state’s Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz called it a “victory for the entire free world.”“Mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who was responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7, was killed today by IDF soldiers,” Katz said in a written statement from his office.“This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel and a victory for the entire free world against the axis of evil of radical Islam led by Iran.”Reports had begun circulating earlier in the day that a terrorist matching the Hamas chief’s description was killed in a military operation near Rafah.

While intelligence officials believed that Sinwar would be surrounded by hostages to use as human shields, the IDF confirmed that no hostages were injured in the strike that took Sinwar out.Israeli media reported that the operation was a routine raid that caught Sinwar by chance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet members had sworn to hunt down and kill Sinwar after learning that he was the man behind the Oct.

7 massacre that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and saw another 251 kidnapped.Just days after the terrorist attack, Sinwar was seen fleeing with his family inside Hamas’ underground tunnel system, with the terror chief managing to elude the IDF’s detection for more than a year.

Sinwar, who served as Hamas’ Gaza chief since 2017, rose to the top of the terror group when its former leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July.Once Sinwar took over, the cease-fire negotiations between Hamas and Israel froze as the new chief opposed any end to the war.Sinwar, who previously described the death of Palestinians in Gaza as “necessary sacrifices,” has repeatedly gotten i...