Hamas on Friday has issued official confirmation that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in southern Gaza. Spokesman and Gaza head Khalil Hayya announced in a televised address that Sinwar has become a “fallen martyr”. 

Calling him “steadfast, brave and intrepid,” Hayya asserted that Sinwar “sacrificed his life to the cause of our liberation.” Israeli authorities had killed him by likely tank fire on a residential building in Rafah, and quickly examined his body, confirming his identify through dental and DNA records (Sinwar had previously spent years in Israeli prison).

“He met his end standing brave, with his head held high, holding his firearm, firing until the last breath, until the last moment of his life,” the Hamas official said, emphasizing that he died in combat. It appears his death happened Wednesday and the Israelis came upon his body amid the rubble on Thursday.

IDF/Reuters: Sinwar’s final moments seen alive, with severed arm & wearing a keffiyeh around his face.

Hayya continued to eulogize the slain Hamas leader in Gaza as follows: “[Sinwar] has lived his whole life as a holy fighter. Since his early days, he was engaged in his struggle as a resistant fighter. He stood defiant behind Israeli bars and after his release in a swapped deal, he continued with his struggle and his dedication to the cause.”

Hayya also described of Sinwar’s “martyrdom” after other leaders which preceded him that this “will only increase the strength and resilience of our movement.”

Amid ongoing speculation that Sinwar’s death could lead to a quick ceasefire and return of the Israeli hostages, Hamas appears to be slamming the door on this prospect. Hayya vowed that the group will continue to fight for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“The occupation prisoners will not return unless the aggression on Gaza stops, there is a complete withdrawal from [Gaza], and our prisoners are released from the prisons,” Hayya declared. “Hamas will continue until the establishment of the Palestinian state on all Palestinian soil with Jerusalem as its capital.”

A separate statement from Al-Qassam Brigades said the same concerning Sinwar’s death. It called anyone who thinks this is the end of the resistance movement “delusional” while proclaiming “martyrdom” as the “highest aspiration” of Hamas leaders. 

The statement essentially vowed that many more Hamas militants will step into the fight. “It [martyrdom] burns the aggressors, and our leaders have left behind hundreds of thousands of mujahideen from our people and nation who are determined to fight the Zionist occupation until Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are cleansed of its defilement and swept away from our land, God willing,” Al-Qassem Brigades said.

Meanwhile, European and US leaders in the aftermath of Sinwar’s killing expressed home for a speedy ceasefire.  “With the death of the Hamas leader Sinwar… hopefully the concrete prospect will now open up for a ceasefire and an agreement to release the hostages in Gaza,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday during a visit by US President Joe Biden.

Yahya Sinwar is dead.

He was killed in Rafah by the brave soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces.

While this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end. pic.twitter.com/C6wAaLH1YW

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 17, 2024

As for Biden, he said this was a “moment of justice” and “an opportunity to seek a path to peace” in Gaza. He stressed the Sinwar had “the blood of Americans and Israelis, Palestinians and Germans and so many others on his hands.”

However, later in the morning White House national security official John Kirby told Axios, “We are not in a situation now where there are serious negotiations on a hostage deal.”

Meanwhile more information has been revealed about Sinwar’s final stand as Israeli forces closed in. While reports say the IDF was pursuing intelligence which generally placed some senior Hamas leaders in the area of Rafah where Sinwar was found, his being there came as a surprise.

The Wall Street Journal details the following:

The moment that changed the war in Gaza came around 3 p.m. when the trainees searching for Hamas tunnels in the southern city of Rafah saw three armed men leaving a building.

The soldiers opened fire. One of the men fled into a nearby building. Soldiers sent a reconnaissance drone in after him. The video feed showed the militant wounded and alone, sitting in a chair.

The IDF released the drone footage of this moment, showing Sinwar with a severed arm defiantly hurling the piece of wood at the drone, with a keffiyeh around his face.

Some analysts have expressed surprise that the video was released, given that instead of showing a Hamas leader cowered and in hiding – Sinwar appeared to essentially be on the front line and personally engaged in the firefight. Some Israeli reports said he had hurled two grenades at Israeli soldiers who tried to close in on foot. Will Sinwar’s killing only intensify Hamas’ resolve, and delay any chance of ceasefire?

Yahya Sinwar went out fighting. Dressed in fatigues, his right arm severed, he flung a stick defiantly at the Israel drone filming him. He had submitted to his fate from the moment he unleashed the flood. This video practically ensures the tide will rise. pic.twitter.com/B6ttzPMHJT

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 17, 2024

The WSJ continues of the account:

In a final act of defiance, the man hurled a chunk of wood at the drone, before the soldiers opened fire again—and the house collapsed on him.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when other soldiers returned to sift through the rubble, that they noticed a resemblance between the dead militant and Sinwar, the Middle East’s most wanted man.

“We operated a lot of fire, a lot of artillery,” a soldier involved in Wednesday’s operation, whose name wasn’t disclosed, told Israel’s Channel 12 news. “When we heard he was killed, we joked around saying, ‘How crazy would it be if it was us?’” 

To be expected, Iran has seized on this theme portraying Sinwar as a ‘martyr’ who fought bravely till the end. Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X that he “bravely fought to the very end on the battlefield” and that he “did not fear death but sought martyrdom in Gaza.”

IDF released footage showing the moment a tank shell was fired on the building where Yahya Sinwar was killed. #Gaza pic.twitter.com/Y2hgYo706m

— FJ (@Natsecjeff) October 18, 2024

Araghchi hailed Sinwar’s death as a “source of inspiration for resistance fighters across the region, Palestinian and non-Palestinian,” emphasizing that “We, and countless others around the world, salute his selfless struggle for liberation of the Palestinian people.”

Given all of this rhetoric, it doesn’t seem the war in Gaza will wind down any time soon. Some analysts have also pointed out that Sinwar had been in charge of negotiations from Hamas’ side, and that his death greatly complicates the possibility of even restarting Doha-Cairo talks.