a Inconsistencies in Israel's official account of Yahya Sinwar's final moments have come to light since his death, likely to fuel the burgeoning martyr cult centered around the Hamas leadership.
An Israeli autopsy conducted on Shinwar concluded that he died of a gunshot wound to the head, but the Israeli Defense Forces say he was killed by a tank shell fired into the wrecked building where he met his end. (IDF)'s original position. stand.
The Israel Defense Forces released footage of tanks firing on buildings in the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah, and military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said: Please search. ”
However, Chen Kugel, director of Israel's National Institute of Forensic Medicine, who performed the autopsy, said the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. In an interview with of new york timesWho fired the fatal shot was Kugel in a skirmish with Israeli soldiers before the tank shell was fired, after he was discovered in the rubble of a building, or was he shot by Sinwar himself to avoid being taken away? I didn't speculate about what I did. alive.
Mr. Sinwar was carrying a pistol, which some Israeli reports say was the weapon of Mahmoud Hil Adin, an IDF intelligence officer from the Galilee region who was killed during a secret mission in Gaza in 2018. It is said that it belonged to Mr.
Conspiracy surrounding Sinwar's death has fueled martyr worship and exploded on social media from the moment the Hamas leader was confirmed dead.
He died in his combat uniform and vest after firing and hurling grenades at Israeli soldiers and assaulting an IDF drone with a wooden baton thrown with his remaining arm in a final act of defiance. This fact makes Shinwar stand out. from his predecessor, who was assassinated while on the run.
When longtime Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated in 2004 by a missile fired by an IDF helicopter gunship, he was wheeled away in a wheelchair after praying at a mosque in Gaza. was.
Although little of his body remained photographed, imaginary photos of the deadly missile attack appeared almost instantly on the walls of the occupied territories, along with photos of the white-bearded leader ascending to the heavens. It became part of the iconography. Photographs of Yassin are still common in Gaza and the West Bank, often showing him alongside recent martyrs.
Sinwar left behind the war-torn corpses of combatants like Che Guevara, an Argentine doctor who took part in the Cuban revolution but ultimately died at the hands of the Bolivian army in 1967 and became a symbol of his cause. Provided a comparable final image. . After Guevara was shot, his body lay on a table for a photo shoot, his wide eyes staring blankly into the camera.
Mr. Sinwar's successors in the Hamas leadership, in the words of Mr. Sinwar's deputy Khalil al-Khayyya, “went to the front, did not retreat, engaged on the front lines, moved between fighting positions.” and celebrated the fact that Mr. Shinwar was killed in combat.
An excerpt from a famous poem by Mahmoud Darwish, the most famous Palestinian poet, has been circulating on the internet with claims that it foretells the end of Shinwar.
The lines from “Praise the High Shadow'' are as follows. “Siege me…there is no escape.” “Your arm has fallen, so pick it up and attack the enemy…there is no escape and I have fallen close to you, so pick me up and attack the enemy with me.” Attack me…you are now free, free, free.”
Darwish joined the cause of Palestine in 1982 on a boat that carried Darwish and other activists and militants from Beirut to Tunisia after Israel's devastating war in Lebanon, aimed at destroying the Palestine Liberation Organization. I wrote this poem for.
Darwish's poem recalls the horrors of the Beirut bombardment and the massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese Shia Muslims in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon at the time. The theme of mass death in the face of international indifference and inaction, combined with the longing for someone to fight back, resonates with Palestinians today in the wake of the destruction of Gaza.
Warrior Shinwar's death appears to ensure his rise to the top of the Palestinian pantheon, but before October 7 last year, he had been cast as a brutal enforcer of Hamas loyalty, even more so than the Israelis. It obscured the fact that it killed far more Palestinians and killed suspected informers in the most gruesome way. manner. Last year's brutal attacks on Israeli civilians in southern Israel exposed Gaza to ferocious Israeli retaliation, leaving Palestinian civilians exposed, hungry and vulnerable, while fighters in Shinwar were left with food and supplies. , water, and medical supplies had long been hidden in a well-stocked tunnel.
To further help shape the narrative he wants, the Hamas leader wrote: 2004 autobiographical novel, thorns and carnationswritten in an Israeli prison and smuggled in pieces.
Ibrahim, Sinwar's alter ego in the book, is a passionate fanatic of the cause who expects Palestinians to be “ready to sacrifice everything for their pride, dignity and beliefs.” Ibrahim asks why Hamas would negotiate with Israel when it could “impose other rules of the game”.
That's what Sinwar was trying to do with the October 7 attack, and what he clearly wanted his legacy to be. The mythology surrounding him, which he worked so hard to build during his lifetime, seems to live on through thousands of posters and street murals.
His accomplishment was also to “change the rules of the game,” although it is not yet clear whether the changes will be in the Palestinians' favor.
