OPINION:
Last week, Israeli soldiers on patrol in Gaza encountered and eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas commander who plotted and implemented the invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the massacre that followed.
This long-anticipated milestone was a significant battle won in a war that will not soon end. To understand why, you need to understand who Sinwar was and the cause for which he fought.
His goal was not to force Israel to end the “occupation” of the Gaza Strip because, as a matter of incontestable fact, all Israelis left Gaza in 2005.
Instead, his goal was to destroy Israel “from the river to the sea” and then replace it with a theocracy — an emirate of the coming caliphate.
Hamas seized absolute power in Gaza in 2007 after a brief civil war against the Palestinian Authority.
Over the years that followed, Hamas constructed a vast labyrinth of tunnels in which, after the Oct. 7 attack, Sinwar hid, surrounded by emaciated hostages who had been dragged out of Israel by his thugs.
These terrorists used the tunnels as fortifications, popping up to shoot Israeli soldiers and steal aid intended for Gaza residents — for whom Hamas built not a single shelter.
Instead, his minions booby-trapped Gaza homes, schools and mosques, the better to kill Israelis and turn Gaza civilians into shields — martyrs for the “Palestinian cause.”
Sinwar was born in 1962 in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. He was just 25 when he organized Hamas’ internal security operation, the al-Majd.
He murdered, often with his own hands, Gaza residents suspected of cooperating with Israelis, earning the sobriquet “Butcher of Khan Younis.”
After murdering 12 Palestinians in 1989, he was given four life sentences in an Israeli prison.
In his 22 years behind bars, he learned Hebrew. Though language can be a window into culture, Sinwar saw nothing about Israel or Israelis to justify their existence, not even after Israeli doctors saved his life in 2004 by removing an aggressive brain tumor.
In 2011, Israel cut a deal with Hamas: The Jewish state released 1,027 convicted criminals in exchange for a single hostage, Gilad Shalit, a corporal in the Israel military who had been kidnapped in 2006. Sinwar was among those freed.
He didn’t regard the high value Israelis place on their citizens as admirable. He saw it as a vulnerability he could exploit.
Before the Oct. 7 attack, he could have told his minions: “Kill and capture soldiers, not civilians. We’re honorable Islamic warriors, not barbarians. We don’t murder children. We don’t rape women. We don’t desecrate corpses.”
But he gave no such instructions. Why was he not worried about the reaction of the “international community”?
Because he knew that anti-Zionists would condone the carnage based on “context” — their insistence that Israel must be dismantled, one way or another.
Because he knew that self-proclaimed social justice warriors would argue that “international law” permits the “oppressed” to commit all manner of crimes against the “oppressors.” That’s patently false, but try explaining that to self-righteous ignoramuses indoctrinated by TikTok videos.
And because he knew that cosplaying revolutionaries and tenured professors (but I repeat myself) would declare Hamas’ orgy of murder and rape “exhilarating.”
Let me recount Sinwar’s final moments. A unit of Israeli military trainees in Rafah — a city President Biden had admonished Israelis not to enter — spots four gunmen. Shots are exchanged. One man is seen running alone into a bombed-out building.
An Israeli drone flies through an open window and hovers above a wounded man in an armchair. He throws a stick at the drone. A tank launches a shell at the building, and it collapses.
Hours later, Israeli soldiers find the man in the rubble. He looks familiar. They find a pistol, cash, a roll of Mentos, nail clippers, a passport and U.N. IDs.
Based on dental records and DNA, he is quickly identified. An autopsy concludes that a bullet to the head caused his death.
Was Sinwar attempting to escape to Egypt? He could have had a deal: a guarantee of safe passage to a third country of his choosing in exchange for freeing the hostages. He rejected that option. Think about that.
Sinwar’s demise leaves Khaled Mashal as Hamas’ top dog. He lives in Qatar, which President Biden named a “major non-NATO ally.”
Mr. Biden should now demand that Qatar’s rulers tell Mr. Mashal: “Order your forces in Gaza to release the American and other hostages immediately. Otherwise, we will extradite you to the U.S. for trial.”
If Qatar’s leaders demur, they should be considered accessories to Hamas’ crimes — as, in reality, they’ve always been — and serious consequences should follow.
Over the weekend, Israeli planes dispersed leaflets over Gaza. They made this offer: “Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace.”
If Hamas can be incapacitated, will that end the bloodshed? No, because an existential war against Israel will continue to be waged by Hezbollah, Houthis in Yemen, various Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other anti-Zionist groups in the West Bank.
I’ll remind you that all these terrorists are funded, armed and instructed by Iran.
Mr. Biden is again pressuring Israel to cease firing and offer deals.
He fails to comprehend what abundant evidence has clearly established: Enemies who are determined to kill you for ideological or theological reasons cannot be appeased.
A big stick may deter them, but offers of carrots only whet their appetite for more war, genocide and conquest.
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.
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