The psychopath Yahya Sinwar. You can see the crazy in his eyes.

We have previously reported on Yahya Sinwar, the now official leader of Hamas, several times in the past, most recently on how he reportedly wants any ceasefire agreement with Israel to include a guarantee that his life will be spared.

Now there’s this, from Sunday’s New York Times:

Israel’s Hunt for the Elusive Leader of Hamas

Yahya Sinwar’s ability to evade capture or death has denied Israel a military success in a war that began after he planned the Oct. 7 attacks.

by By Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman, Julian E. Barnes, and Adam Goldman | Mark Mazzetti and Julian Barnes reported from Washington. Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman reported from Tel Aviv and Rafah. | Sunday, August 25, 2024

In January, Israeli and American officials thought they had caught a break in the hunt for one of the world’s most wanted men.

Israeli commandos raided an elaborate tunnel complex in the southern Gaza Strip on Jan. 31 based on intelligence that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, was hiding there, according to American and Israeli officials.

He had been, it turned out. But Mr. Sinwar had left the bunker beneath the city of Khan Younis just days earlier, leaving behind documents and stacks of Israeli shekels totaling about $1 million. The hunt went on, with a dearth of hard evidence on his whereabouts.

Since the deadly Oct. 7 attacks in Israel that he planned and directed, Mr. Sinwar has been something of a ghost: never appearing in public, rarely releasing messages for his followers and giving up few clues about where he might be.

He fled without the money? 🙂 I guess he understands that you just can’t take it with you! Previous ‘official’ Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, found out just a month ago that his estimated $4 billion personal fortune wasn’t enough to Israel from sending him from being sent to Jahannam and his 72 bacha bazi boys.

Mr Sinwar, along with several other Hamas leaders, have been hiding in the sophisticated Hamas tunnel network in Gaza, and the Times’ report tells readers that they have ceased using sophisticated electronics communications, as Osama bin Laden famously did as well, to avoid being tracked by American and Israeli intelligence. Rather, these 7^th century minds are using a very 7^th century method of communications, human couriers. I’d note here that Adolf Hitler served as a dispatch courier from regimental headquarters during World War I, and there’s probably some irony in that.

The Times reported that messages to and from Mr Sinwar used to be completed within days, but that it has recently become more difficult and time consuming. If Mr Sinwar’s approval is required for any ceasefire agreement to be concluded, then such automatically draws out any negotiations. But, to me, the entire idea of ceasefire negotiations is ridiculous: the losing side in a war does not get to dictate terms to the winners. In the last war the United States actually won, the terms to Germany and Japan were simple: unconditional surrender.

The ‘Palestinians’ cannot do much more than lob a couple of harmless rockets at Israel at this point, and Israel can decide to stop shooting at the ‘Palestinians’ any time they choose. The only sticking point is the roughly 109 hostages Hamas currently holds. CNN reported, on June 13^th that a senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, stated that no one really knows how many of the 120 remaining hostages are even still alive. The Israel Defense Force recently recovered the bodies of six more hostages, which ought to indicate that relatively few of them remain alive.

Speaking to CNN in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Hamdan said the latest proposal on the table – an Israeli plan that was first publicly announced by US President Joe Biden late last month – did not meet the group’s demands for an end to the war.

Hamdan told CNN that Hamas needed “a clear position from Israel to accept the ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from Gaza, and let the Palestinians to determine their future by themselves, the reconstruction, the (lifting) of the siege … and we are ready to talk about a fair deal about the prisoners exchange.”

Wait, what? The current proposal “(does) not meet the group’s demands for an end to the war”?

Mr Hamdan is saying, in effect, that Israel has to give Hamas something that they have not won on the battlefield to end the war!

Unlike bin Laden in his last years, Mr. Sinwar is actively managing a military campaign. Diplomats involved in cease-fire negotiations in Doha, Qatar, say that Hamas representatives insist they need Mr. Sinwar’s input before they make major decisions in the talks. As the most respected Hamas leader, he is the only person who can ensure that whatever is decided in Doha is implemented in Gaza.

This has been previously reported, including the fact that Mr Sinwar’s consent had to be obtained even when Mr Haniyeh was the nominal leader of Hamas. That’s the beauty of an unconditional surrender demand: no ‘negotiations’ are required, and the IDF can keep shooting and burning and bombing until the rats come out of the tunnels with their hands up.

Adolf Hitler never surrendered. Instead, as the Red Army were closing in on Berlin and the Führerbunker, he poisoned his wife and shot himself in the head, his last loyal aides taking their bodies outside and burning them in the garden. After living underground for over none months, that might be a fitting end for Mr Sinwar. After all, he hates Jews just as much as did der Führer!