Editor's note: Peter Bergen is a national security analyst for CNN, vice president of New America, a professor at Arizona State University and host of the Audible podcast “In the Room,” which is also available on Apple and Spotify. He is the author of “The Rise and Fall of Osama Bin Laden.” Opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.
CNN —
In February, the Israel Defense Forces released a grainy video showing the back of a man they identified as Yahya Sinwar, a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip. The dark figure, seen only from behind, is seen scurrying through one of Hamas' labyrinth of tunnels that lead deep beneath the Gaza Strip.
As Sinwar's face was not shown in the video, there was no independent confirmation that the mystery man was indeed a Hamas leader.
It's a fitting image for Mr. Sinwar, who seemed to vanish like a ghost after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250. The Israeli military was quick to claim he was a “dying man.” But eight months later, he stubbornly remains alive.
Having lived largely in the shadows for most of his life, little is known about Sinwar, despite him being one of the most important figures in the Middle East today. Israel accuses him of being the “mastermind” of the October 7 Hamas attack.
He is now also taking the lead for Hamas and deciding whether to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in a potential deal announced by President Joe Biden late last month.
Meanwhile, Sinwar's attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza brought attention to the Palestinian issue in a way not seen for many years.
The Wall Street Journal obtained messages leaked by Sinwar to Hamas officials, saying he described the many Palestinians who have died in the war in Gaza as “necessary sacrifices.” According to the report, Sinwar told members of the terrorist group involved in negotiations between the U.S. and Israel that “we have put the Israelis where we want them.”
So who is the 61-year-old Sinwar and what drives him? The answer can be found in a fascinating New York Times profile of Dr. Yuval Biton, an Israeli prison officer who got to know Sinwar during the Hamas leader's more than two decades in Israeli prisons. A dentist, Dr. Biton once saved Sinwar's life by rushing him to hospital after he fell ill with a malignant brain tumor and underwent successful surgery.
After Sinwar recovered, Bitton and Sinwar spent hours talking to each other, Bitton trying to better understand the Hamas mindset, Sinwar trying to better understand the Israeli mindset, whom he had studied meticulously during his imprisonment, including becoming fluent in Hebrew.
Sinwal, like his predecessor Osama bin Laden, is a zealous opponent of the state of Israel, more religious than political. Sinwal told Bitton that the Land of Israel was in fact Muslim land, and that Muslims had a religious right to reclaim it, and therefore that any two-state solution was impossible.
Sinwal, like Osama bin Laden, is a zealot whose opposition to the state of Israel is religious rather than political.
Peter Bergen
Sinwar has also memorized the Quran, an incredible feat considering the book contains over 6,000 verses.
According to the U.S. State Department's designation of Sinwar as a terrorist in 2015, he was serving four life sentences in prison for kidnapping and killing two Israeli soldiers.
While in prison, Sinwal admitted to killing several Palestinians he believed to be collaborating with Israel: According to a transcript of his 1989 interrogation published by Israel Hayom, Sinwar told his Israeli interrogators that he had strangled one collaborator with his bare hands and suffocated another with a kefir scarf.
While in prison, Sinwar became a leader among his fellow Hamas prisoners, according to The Washington Post.
Stalled ceasefire talks with Shinwar
A proposed ceasefire agreement unveiled by President Biden late last month has stalled, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday blamed Hamas for the impasse, saying, “I don't think anyone can make that decision except for the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip.”
Sinwar is at the center of those decisions, and Blinken made an oblique reference to him on Tuesday, saying: “We are waiting for a response from Hamas that will tell us what they want, what they are looking for, who they are looking after. Are they looking after one guy who may be buried 10 stories underground somewhere in Gaza that may be deemed safe…”
Details of the ceasefire negotiations are being kept closely secret, but there are a number of issues on which Hamas and Israel could differ, including the length of the first phase of the ceasefire, which Biden has said would be six weeks, the exact role of Israeli troops in the first phase, which Biden has said would involve a withdrawal from populated areas of Gaza, and the exact number of hostages held by Hamas that would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli prisons.
The fact that Sinwar was himself an Israeli prisoner, released along with more than 1,000 other prisoners in 2011 in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza, must be weighing heavily on the minds of Israeli negotiators.
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Sinwar's release came at a great cost to both Israel and the people of the Gaza Strip whom he claims to represent, with some 37,000 people killed in the war, according to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry.
In short, Sinwar is a brutal and calculating warlord driven by religious fervor that the Palestinian cause is just. Negotiating with such a leader will not be easy.
