The news began to break early today that the leader of Hamas and the mastermind of October 7th, Yahya Sinwar, had been killed during a strike by the IDF.

Since Sinwar had been an Israeli prisoner that ended up being part of the Gilad Shalit exchange in 2011, Israel had both his DNA and his dental records. It did not take long for them to formally confirm that the body they now hold was him.

And it didn’t take long for images of Sinwar’s dead body to make it onto the internet. Warning – if you see it, it is quite graphic. Meeting the business end of a tank shell will cause damage to the human body, and might leave a rather large crack in your head.

An Israel Army Radio report said Thursday that Sinwar was killed during a battle with Israeli soldiers.

The soldiers had spotted suspected terrorists in Gaza and opened fire before the individuals fled into a building, according to the report. It added that a tank then fired a shell at the building, causing it to collapse.

When the soldiers went inside to examine the aftermath, they found three bodies – one of which ultimately has been identified as Sinwar.

This was not a special operation, and was apparently carried out in Rafah (you know, the Hamas stronghold that the Biden administration, and Kamala Harris, kept telling Israel to leave alone) by IDF soldiers who are apparently just months into their service in the Army. After all the time spent searching for Sinwar, that he could be taken out by a tank shell by green kids on their first tour of duty is simply poetic. Oh, and the two bodyguards that were with Sinwar? One was apparently an UNRWA teacher, and the other a Hamas “official.” I guess we now get to wait for the UN to continue to ignore how UNRWA is a Hamas front group.

Now, the question becomes, what about the hostages? For months, it has been reported that Sinwar had been using hostages as human shields. That apparently has been confirmed, but those hostages were the six that were found executed – also in Rafah.

Israel’s security establishment knew for months that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was hiding in Rafah.

They believed that he was hiding underground and for much of this time was with the six hostages who were murdered in a tunnel in August.

The IDF did not have precise…

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) October 17, 2024

The full post reads:

Israel’s security establishment knew for months that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was hiding in Rafah.

They believed that he was hiding underground and for much of this time was with the six hostages who were murdered in a tunnel in August.

The IDF did not have precise intelligence of where Sinwar was located and the soldiers who killed him yesterday only realized it was him after the fact.

The speculation now is that Hamas, on his orders, killed the hostages because the IDF was getting too close, and Sinwar could no longer move with them. This revelation has the families of other hostages now deeply worried – as if they have ever stopped since October 7th – about their own loved ones.

Orna and Ronen Neutra, the parents of Israeli American hostage Omer, said it was critical that all efforts focus on returning those held by Hamas. They called on the Israeli and U.S. governments to “act swiftly and do whatever is needed to reach a deal with the captors”.

“Sinwar, who was described as a major obstacle to a deal, is no longer alive,” they said in a statement.

“We are at an inflection point where the goals set for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages.”

To that point, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made an official announcement to all of Gaza – if you hand over a hostage, you will be granted immunity, while also promising the families that the recovery of the hostages from Hamas custody is his top priority.

Joe Biden – who is still president – has issued a statement that says all the correct things about the death of the Hamas leader, though he seems weirdly optimistic that Sinwar was the only stumbling block to the end of the war.

To my Israeli friends, this is no doubt a day of relief and reminiscence, similar to the scenes witnessed throughout the United States after President Obama ordered the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

Israel has had every right to eliminate the leadership and military structure of Hamas. Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7.

I will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people.

There is now the opportunity for a “day after” in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals. That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us.

Senator John Fetterman was much more direct on X.

I want to salute Israel and celebrate the elimination of Yahya Sinwar—a necessary move for any future enduring peace.

Eliminating the mastermind of the 10/7 massacre is the definition of justice served.

My vote and my voice for Israel will not waver.

— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) October 17, 2024

While Biden is trying to position himself as some kind of paternalistic “helper” in the ongoing war, Fetterman’s sentiment resonates more. The fact that the killing of Sinwar was almost accidental, and not a full-scale special operation, makes it even better (and those kids in the tank will never have to buy themselves another beer again). Hamas, like a hydra, will sprout another head at some point, though who it will be is an open question after so many targeted hits have taken out the leadership structure. The problem, in reality, is that the population of Gaza needs to be “de-Nazified” of their hatred of Israel. Netanyahu’s offer of amnesty for hostages is a smart move at this moment, with Hamas in temporary disarray, and the moral victory of Sinwar’s death fresh in the minds of those in Gaza. Will this motivate anyone who happens to hold a hostage to hand them over? Let us pray that it does.

It seems altogether fitting – nearly Providential – that today is the first day of the holiday of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. Last year, the attack on October 7th took place at the end of Sukkot, on the holiday of Simchat Torah. It seems fitting that as Israel, and observant Jews all over the world, begin this Sukkot holiday week, the news is filtering out from those around them who are accessing technology and news that the Hamas leader, the evil Sinwar, is dead. While we wait to see if he gets a glowing and mournful obituary from Western media, those who suffered due to his evil are surely celebrating today.

Featured image: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar via Dee Soulza on Wikimedia Commons, cropped and modified, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)