All eyes on Rafah

(JNS) — Young Israeli soldiers on patrol in Gaza two weeks ago encountered and eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas commander who plotted and implemented the invasion of Israel on Oct. 7 and the brutal 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 Gaza because, as a matter of incontestable fact, all Israelis departed 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 following a brief but bloody civil war against the Palestinian Authority.

Over the years that followed, Hamas constructed a vast labyrinth of tunnels in which, following the Oct. 7 attack, Sinwar was able to hide, surrounded by emaciated hostages who had been dragged out of Israel by his thugs.

These terrorists utilized the tunnels as fortifications, popping up to shoot Israeli soldiers and steal aid intended for Gazan civilians, for whom Hamas built not a single shelter.

Instead, Sinwar’s minions boobytrapped Gazan homes, schools and mosques, the better to kill Israelis and turn Gazan civilians into human shields—martyrs for the “Palestinian cause.”

Sinwar was born in the southern Gazan town of Khan Yunis in 1962. A precocious terrorist, he was just 25 when he organized Hamas’s internal security operation, the al-Majd.

He murdered, often with his own hands, Gazans suspected of cooperating with Israelis, earning the sobriquet: “Butcher of Khan Yunis.”

After murdering 12 Palestinians in 1989, he was given four life sentences in an Israeli prison.

During his 22 years behind bars, Sinwar 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 Defense Forces who had been kidnapped in 2006. Sinwar was among those freed.

He didn’t regard the high value that Israelis place on their citizens as admirable. He saw it as a vulnerability he could exploit.

Before the Oct. 7 attacks, 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 the Jewish state must be dismantled, one way or another.

Because he knew that self-declared “social-justice warriors” would contend 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’s orgy of murder and rape “exhilarating.”

Let me now recount Sinwar’s final moments. A unit of IDF trainees in Rafah—a city that U.S. President Joe 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 which collapses.

Hours later, Israeli soldiers locate the man in the rubble. He looks familiar. They find a pistol, cash, a roll of Mentos, nail clippers, a passport and identification issued by the United Nations.

Based on dental records and DNA, Sinwar 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 Mashaal as Hamas’s top dog. He lives in Qatar, which Biden officially named a “major non-NATO ally.”

Biden should now demand that Qatar’s rulers tell Mashaal: “Order your forces in Gaza to release the American and other hostages immediately. Otherwise, we will extradite you to the United States for trial.”

If Qatar’s leaders demur, they should be considered accessories to Hamas’s crimes—as, in reality, they’ve always been—and serious consequences should follow.

Israeli planes dispersed leaflets over Gaza last week. 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 bring an end to the bloodshed? No, because an existential war against Israel will continue to be waged by Hezbollah, Houthi rebels in Yemen, Shia militias in Syria and Iraq, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and anti-Zionist groups in the West Bank.

I’ll remind you that all these terrorists are funded, armed and instructed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Biden is again pressuring Israel to cease firing and offer deals.

He fails to comprehend what abundant evidence has by now clearly established: that enemies 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.

Originally published by “The Washington Times.”