Yahya Sinwar will hold sway over Hamas from beyond the grave

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. AFTER THE Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in 2021 Yahya Sinwar appeared sitting on a sofa in the open air, surrounded by rubble and smiling. It became a defining image of resistance for many Hamas supporters.

This time the story has ended differently. In a video released by the Israeli military, a shattered figure on an armchair inside a building is seen feebly launching a stick at a hovering drone. Hamas now accepts that Mr Sinwar died soon after; on October 18th it said that his death would only increase the strength and resilience of the movement.

In fact Mr Sinwar’s death leaves it shattered and divided, with rival factions now likely to vie for control of its remaining resources and its ideological objectives. To understand this contest you have to grasp how he concentrated power in his hands, to catastrophic effect. To his supporters the architect of the October 7th atrocities punctured Israel’s sense of invincibility and catapulted a waning cause into the world’s headlines.

To his opponents he brought hellfire down onto Gaza and caused death and ruination there. His rise was the culmination of decades of planning and outmanoeuvring of opponents, turning a movement into the Sinwar show. In prison in Israel, this violent and calculating man became more systematic in his thinking, while attaining a position of leadership within Hamas’s influential prison constituency and a name for murdering suspected collaborators behind bars.