The Hamas chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, has determined that civilian casualties work to his terrorist organization’s advantage as he continues his eight-month long battle with Israel in the coastal enclave, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper acquired dozens of messages that were reportedly sent by the 61-year-old jihadist to Middle Eastern mediators and his colleagues in Qatar, confirming that he has no intention to make peace with Israel because the continued bloodshed hurts the Jewish state’s image in the world.
In a message to his superiors in Doha, Sinwar compared the deaths of non-combatants in the conflict to the hundreds of thousands who died in the 1954 Algerian War of Independence, describing them as “necessary sacrifices.”
After an April airstrike killed three sons of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar wrote to his bereaved commander, telling him that his children’s deaths would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”
The arch-terrorist and architect of the October 7 rampage in southern Israel also appears to be obstructing his own leadership’s efforts to implement a ceasefire.
The Journal reported that in a post-war planning meeting in December between Hamas and Palestinian Authority officials, Sinwar described the effort as “shameful and outrageous,” while insisting that his gunmen “have the capabilities to continue fighting for months.”
“As long as fighters are still standing and we have not lost the war, such contacts should immediately be terminated,” he told the participants.
In February, Sinwar was accused of pressuring his negotiators to refuse an agreement that would prevent the invasion of Rafah because he believed that his strategy of maximizing collateral deaths was isolating Jerusalem from its Western allies.
The Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza, who do not differentiate between civilians and militants, have maintained the unverified claim that 37,000 people have died since the area’s hostilities started in October.
“We make the headlines only with blood,” Sinwar said in a 2018 interview with an Italian journalist. “No blood, no news.”
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