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| Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defense Minister. ⓒ AFP=News1 ⓒ News1 Jeong Ji-yoon, reporter |
(Seoul=News1) Reporter Kim Min-soo = Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has once again emphasized that Yahya Sinwar, the political leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, is the top priority for elimination, comparing him to Osama bin Laden, who was assassinated by the U.S. as the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
On the 17th (local time), Minister Gallant announced this via X (former Twitter) after meeting with French Defense Minister Sebastien Le Cornu.
He said, “I thank the French Minister. Visiting Israel during wartime sends a strong message to the entire region,” and “Yahya Sinwar is the new bin Laden, and we will track him down and claim victory.”
In 2001, bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., which resulted in over 3,000 deaths and was the head of Al-Qaeda, was finally assassinated in his hideout in Pakistan in 2011 during the Obama administration after a decade of hiding.
The Israeli military publicly states that Sinwar will eventually be eliminated, just like bin Laden, who was executed by the U.S. military ten years after orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.
Richard Hect, a spokesman for the Israeli military (Lieutenant Colonel), criticized Sinwar as a person with the ‘face of evil’, just like bin Laden who instigated the 9/11 attacks, and the main figure behind this incident. He then threatened, “He is as good as a dead man (Dead man walking).”
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| Yahya Sinwar, known as the political leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. 2023.4.14/News1 ⓒ AFP=News1 ⓒ News1 Kim Min-soo, reporter |
Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and joined Hamas not long after it was founded in 1987. Two years later, he was arrested on charges of kidnapping and killing two Israelis and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
During his 22-year incarceration in an Israeli prison, not only did he build relationships with Palestinian activists, but he also mastered Israeli culture and Hebrew. He was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange.
Sinwar served as the head of Hamas’ security sector in the mid-1980s, where he was responsible for tracking and punishing Palestinians indicted for collaborating with Israel.
He earned the nickname ‘the Butcher of Khan Younis’ during this time and even rose to the position of leader of the group that would later become the Al-Qassam Brigades. He was subsequently revered as a mythical figure within the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military is staking everything on eliminating Sinwar, who is known to have secretly led this surprise attack as the de facto leader of Hamas.
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| Osama bin Laden (left) sits with Ayman al-Zawahiri (right), an Egyptian associated with Al-Qaeda, during an interview with Pakistani media. 2001.11.10. ⓒ Reuters=News1 ⓒ News1 Park Ki-hyun, reporter |
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