Mohammed Sinwar, defiant Hamas leader who took over the terror group after the death of brother Yahya
His older brother Yahya Sinwar was the architect of the appalling October 7 terrorist attack on Israel of 2023, in which more than 1,200 were killed, thousands injured and 251 abducted to Gaza. Following that Hamas attack, Israel mobilised its forces, embarking on an all-out war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to destroy the organisation, kill its leaders, and release the Israeli hostages.
On October 16 2024, the Israelis killed Yahya Sinwar. Mohammed subsequently succeeded his elder brother as Hamas leader and head of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas; with that, Mohammed Sinwar became the most senior Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip.
As the new leader of Hamas, Mohammed Sinwar initiated a new recruitment programme aimed at rebuilding units, many of which were destroyed by Israel in the war. He also attempted to use the hostages still in Hamas's hands to negotiate an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
In the indirect negotiations with Israel, Mohammed Sinwar has shown himself to be as stubborn as his late older sibling. 'Hamas is in a very strong position to dictate the cease-fire terms,' he wrote in a message to mediators in Doha, Qatar. And in another defiant message, he said: 'If it is not a comprehensive deal [with Israel] that ends the sufferings of all Gazans and justifies their blood and sacrifices, Hamas will continue its fight.'
Mohammed Ibrahim Hassan al-Sinwar was born on September 16 1975, one of two children, in the Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, at a time when the Strip was under Israeli rule, following its occupation in the 1967 Six-Day War. Mohammed's parents, who lived in Al-Majdal Asqalan, Palestine (now Ashkelon in Israel), became refugees in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, seeking refuge in the Gaza Strip.
Sinwar grew up in Khan Younis, where he attended primary and secondary school for boys.
At the age of 16, during the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising against the Israelis, Mohammed joined the Hamas movement, which called for the destruction of Israel, becoming a member of the group's military wing, the Qassam Brigades. He was arrested by the Israeli authorities because of terrorist activities and was sent to prison for nine months; upon his release, the young Sinwar upped his militaristic activities with Hamas, taking part in several deadly terror attacks against Israel. As a staunch opponent of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, Mohammed Sinwar was also arrested by them, sent to a Palestinian jail for three years, but managed to escape from jail in 2000.
In 2005, after 38 years in the Gaza Strip, the Israelis withdrew from there, which, in turn, strengthened Hamas as it enabled them to operate more easily. Subsequently, breaking its traditional secrecy, Hamas disclosed the names of seven of its top commanders in the Gaza Strip; one of them, the commander of the Khan Younis Brigade, turned out to be Mohammed Sinwar. In an interview about the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Sinwar said: 'Inshallah, this is the beginning of the full liberation of the lands of Palestine.'
In June 2006, Mohammed Sinwar masterminded a cross-border attack on an Israeli military post, capturing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Hamas kept Shalit in captivity for five years and, following indirect negotiations with the Netanyahu government, Hamas agreed to release Shalit on October 18 2011 in exchange for 1,026 Palestinian prisoners; one of those released was a certain Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed's elder brother, the future Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip and the brain behind the October 7 attack on Israel.
Seeing how Mohammed Sinwar turned into an influential figure in Hamas, the Israelis tried on several occasions to assassinate him, using snipers, missiles and bombs planted in his garden wall. After one of these failed assassination attempts, Mohammed Sinwar said: 'These assassinations cause short shocks to those who oppose the [Israeli] occupation. But if the occupation thinks that it will paralyse [us], then it is not going to happen.' He added: 'My life now is different than my previous life … [I] must adapt to a life of isolation from the outer world and find ways to fill up [my] time ... Each move must be calculated and planned … [to evade assassinations] one must be very alert at all times.'
In 2014, in an attempt to stop the Israelis' efforts to kill Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas announced that he had died by Israeli fire on a residential complex: they even produced a fake photo of him covered in blood.
In February 2017, his big brother Yahya Sinwar was elected leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, in what was seen as a victory for hardline militancy. Operating behind the scenes, a habit which earned him the nickname 'The Shadow', Mohammed Sinwar said in a rare 2022 interview with Al Jazeera, his face hidden, that most Gazans would not recognise him because he was so unknown. To maintain secrecy, he had skipped his father's funeral, and said in the interview: 'For us, shooting rockets at Tel Aviv is easier than sipping water.'
Mohammed Sinwar was a close confidant of Yahya and was one of a handful of top Hamas terrorists who knew about the October 7 attack in advance. During the subsequent war, Mohammed Sinwar was one of the few who knew the whereabouts of Yahya and where he was hiding.
In December 2023, two months after the outbreak of the Gaza War, the IDF released rare footage of Mohammed Sinwar, accompanied by bodyguards, and sitting in a Jeep, inspecting a Gaza tunnel; this footage showed how involved he was in the running of the war. Israel placed a $300,000 (about £223,000) bounty on any information about his whereabouts.
On May 13 2025, Israeli aeroplanes dropped tons of explosives on an underground site near the European Hospital in Khan Younis, targeting a Hamas command and control facility where Israeli intelligence believed Mohammed Sinwar was staying. For some time his fate was unknown, but on May 28 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Mohammed Sinwar was dead.
He was married and had three children.
Mohammed Sinwar, born September 16 1975, died May 13 2025
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