What Sinwar's Death Really Says

In a fractured media-scape divided along partisan lines and propaganda on the Hamas-Israel War, the death of Sinwar sheds truths.

On October 16th, 2024, Hamas Leader and October 7th Architect Yahya Sinwar died via an Israeli tank shell that struck his position as he sat bleeding to death in a ruined building in Rafah. Depending on the inclinations of the reader, this was either a glorious death in battle or an unceremonious end. In the proceeding days, the real meanings of this moment have long been overlooked in favor of defending either of those positions. In a fractured media-scape divided along partisan lines and propaganda on the Hamas-Israel War, the death of Sinwar sheds truths.

Source IDF

“He died wearing a military vest, fighting with a rifle and grenades, and when he was wounded and was bleeding he fought with a stick. This is how heroes die,” said Adel Rajab, a father of two in Gaza as quoted by Reuters two days later. This is largely representative of how Sinwar’s death has been reported by media outlets: celebrated as a hero. It all dovetails with Hamas’ own statement, “He died a hero, attacking not fleeing, clutching his rifle, and engaging against the occupation army at the front line.”

However, the immediate truth to Hamas’ own version of events is somewhat semantic: Sinwar and two other insurgents all wearing the same uniform were fleeing an apparent Israeli patrol (made up of trainees in a lesson per the IDF) when they were taken under fire. One fighter split from the other two and took shelter in a building. When the IDF sent a drone into the building to make sure they were not walking into an ambush, the footage showed the Hamas member eventually lazily taking a stick or some sort of debris and threw it at the drone in what could be described as a half-hearted attempt to down it. This last effort is what has been seized on by his supporters as a final act of resistance.

Yet this is a stretch of the truth perhaps because he died alone, and only the IDF has the body. This is important because we, everyone else, don’t know what wounds he sustained prior to the drone footage or if those wounds were mortal. More importantly, nothing in the IDF account indicates that Sinwar was actively involved in a firefight. Rather, the three militants were spotted and then engaged. Likewise, Sinwar doesn’t appear to be otherwise armed which is actually more than a semantic matter. After all, it would be a curious choice to throw a stick at a drone if you had a gun. He died in an area the IDF believed secure enough to conduct a training exercise, which seems hardly “engaging against the occupation at the front line.”

The narrative of a warrior’s death is ideal for Palestinian Resistance groups to seize on but it seems less likely the more one looks at the evidence. Again, everyone see’s what they want to see in the video. There has been a lot of speculation as to Sinwar’s whereabouts - the long running belief that sources indicated he had been surrounded by hostages as a precaution to the sort of attack that killed Nasrallah. Since his death the IDF has released DNA trace evidence that he was close enough to hostages that were executed weeks ago to have his DNA on their bodies. There is a real possibility that Sinwar was caught trying to relocate from one hiding spot to another when he was killed. Not quite the “fighter narrative.”

Still, even if the fighter narrative is correct, it paints a far darker picture than his supporters would like everyone to believe. A scenario where Sinwar is fighting rifle in hand against the IDF in battle is stoic but medieval. It would be like Hitler fighting trench to trench against the Red Army in Berlin and then finally, surrounded and out of ammunition, retreating to his bunker to die by his own hand. The truth could be remotely closer to this, the only wounds visible in the drone footage is a major bleed from Sinwar’s right forearm/wrist area. Cut off from his guards, surrounded by the IDF with nowhere to hide and likely without a firearm - it is entirely plausible he used a knife to prevent the worst outcome for his cause: capture. The IDF tank shell may have obliterated the evidence.

Still though, if Hamas’ story is true, the optics are strategically and tactically bad. Osama Bin Laden was still considered a martyr and still considered largely in charge and credited with running the insurgency against the US lead coalition in Afghanistan at his death. Generals don’t die on the front line. If they do, they are failures in the eyes of history. Their importance is their ability to marshal their forces and manage the battle better than the enemy. There is little doubt that Patton was an adept marksman nor that he didn’t hunger to see battle - but no historian or soldier would think highly of his use on the front line.

If Sinwar were truly acting as an infantryman in Rafah it means that Hamas’ condition in the war is much worse than believed. Even as a fire team leader I understood my place was to direct my own troops fires rather than fire my own rifle. If Sinwar is in a position that he has to be individually directing troops to engage the IDF in small unit actions, it means he is disconnected from the rest of the force and is unable to manage the battle as a whole. Military leadership is a hierarchy specifically because one cannot manage both the operation of a machine gun team, the logistics and communications for an entire battle, and manage the command and control of units in different sectors simultaneously. Division Commanders issue orders to Brigade commanders, who in turn issue directives to Battalion commanders, and on and on until you reach the lowest level Non-Coms telling individual riflemen where to stand and shoot. Generals cannot concern themselves with the individual positions of line troops.

A CEO cannot be both in the Board Room and manning a call center phone at the same time. The optics to the company internally are good when the top boss is willing to jump in the trenches and answer customer help calls, but the truth any C-Suiter will tell you is if the CEO isn’t busy enough managing the company that they have the time to man a phone in the call center they are not doing their job as the CEO. If things at the company are so bad that the CEO has to man the phones to keep the lights on, well, most companies close their doors before that point arrives. Yet that’s the very alarm bells that ring for the leader of Hamas to be fighting side by side with expendable pawns in battle.

The tea leaves read then that Hamas morale and command & control has become so degraded that its top leadership have to be in close proximity to the line troops because there are no remaining lower-level leaders with the skills to carry out the orders; or worse the leadership doesn’t have the buy-in from the fighters to have their orders followed otherwise. None of the famed US General Officers in history, famous for rallying the troops individually on the battlefield to overcome great odds did so in a scenario where things were going well. Nelson is not remembered for Trafalgar because the English Fleet vastly outnumbered the combined French and Spanish Fleets and victory was assured.

Analysts have made a big deal of Hamas’ ability to draw new fighters from disaffected Palestinian teens who have lost their homes and family members in the fighting. However these men (boys, actually) haven’t invested the same loyalty and commitment in Sinwar as Hamas’ fighters recruited prior to October 7th. If the destruction of Hamas’ C2 Assets (Command & Control) has been so effective that the group’s top leader has to fight on the battlefield, Hamas has falsely received the benefit of the doubt in most of the analysis, coverage and strategic picture.

Ali, a 30-year-old cab driver and father of two in Gaza said, “I will make this video a daily duty to watch for my sons and my grandsons in the future.” Proudly said in celebration of Sinwar; but his words betray his actions. That despite his pride in the warrior death narrative, and despite the loss and destruction, it’s better to drive a cab than fight with Hamas for the future of a Palestinian State. In death Sinwar fails to gain anything he hadn’t achieved in life, only now, he can achieve nothing else.

Given the more likely scenario that he was simply caught by chance in the open going from one hiding spot to another suggests the IDF’s destruction of “the Metro” network of tunnels under Gaza has been more effective than believed as well. The events we know also don’t lend themselves to logic. The IDF didn’t know it was Sinwar until after he had been killed. Again, had they known who they had in the crosshairs they would have certainly attempted to capture him alive. Yet under scrutiny, it is also very likely the other two Hamas fighters with him were unaware it was Sinwar as well.

In the last 30 days Israel has proven that they have infiltrated the Axis of Resistance to a degree that, in a different context, would have been multiple NATO informants on the Politburo. Israeli strikes on top leadership were conducted with intimate knowledge of their individual movements. After the cyberattacks on Hezbollah, there was a growing question both in the West and amongst Hamas’ supporters of Sinwar’s status after he hadn’t been heard from for quite some time. He was already remarkably cautious in his communications methods to shield himself from detection. This suggests that Sinwar removed himself from his own inner circle, believing it better to hide in plain sight and seek protection in anonymity.

Thus, believing the third member of their party to probably be some Hamas lieutenant, the two other fighters thought little of it when they split up from Sinwar . After all, excusing the crudeness of this statement, Sinwar’s inner circle would have crawled through hell with his body on their back to prevent it from falling into Israeli hands. Even the newest fighter for Hamas would have balked at an order to abandon their wounded hero…unless of course they didn’t know who he was. If they didn’t know, they could never give up his identity to the Israelis even if they wanted to.

Of much of this we’ll never know, but there is plenty we do. Sitting in a dusty chair in a ruined Rafah apartment, Yahya Sinwar sat bleeding (perhaps self-inflicted) staring at a wall. As the drone that heralded his death arrived, he would have known the following: his October 7th maskirovka had failed to deliver it’s promised objective. Israel has operational control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank hasn’t become a second Gaza (in the version Hamas had hoped). Despite a policy of unity, Hezbollah never really entered the war on Hamas’ behalf and the big stick (Iran) behind the entire Axis has failed to strike Israel in a meaningful way even after repeated heavy blows from Israel itself. Hezbollah had announced their willingness to have a truce that was disconnected from the Gaza campaign. The PA deal when made projected that Hamas would assume the PA into itself, now it is the PA that will likely absorb Hamas in all but name if either is to have a say in a future Palestinian State. A State that is no closer and perhaps even further from creation. Though normalization ties with the Jewish state are on ice, none of the Arab powers have renounced their normalization. The United States and the West still back Israel in action if not in word. For all of their bluster, Hamas has been reduced to what they were capable of 20 years ago at a cost of putting the Gaza Strip back more than double or triple that.

He died alone and anonymous. His predecessors who he had dragged into this war enjoyed massive funerals where their bodies were paraded as heroes to their final rest. The presence of the Israeli drone would have left him with the knowledge that his remains would certainly be captured by the Israelis, who were likely to treat them the same way Bin Laden was interred, assuming they figured out who he was at all.