The Israeli government concluded the terrorist leader was killed during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 16.
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other U.S. political leaders celebrated on Oct. 17 following the news Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a recent Israeli military operation.
“I called [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] to congratulate him on getting Sinwar,” Biden told members of the press as he landed in Berlin, Germany for a state visit this week. “He had a lot of blood in his hands. American blood, Israeli blood, and others.”
The U.S. government placed Hamas on its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations in 1997 and officially named Sinwar on its Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) list in 2015.
Sinwar, 61, has served as the top Hamas figure in Gaza since 2017, and as the chairman of the Hamas political bureau since August. He was seen by Israel as the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion, during which Hamas gunmen carried out killings and kidnappings across southern Israel, leaving about 1,200 people dead, thousands more wounded, and 251 abducted as hostages.
Israeli forces have been working to end Hamas’s hold over the Gaza Strip in the year since the 2023 attacks.
Israeli forces have also worked to recover those people taken captive more than a year ago. About 100 hostages remain in the Gaza Strip.
Biden, in his initial press statement on Sinwar’s death, said the Hamas chairman represented “an insurmountable obstacle” to reaching a political settlement in the long-running Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
“That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us,” he added.
The Biden administration has since positioned the news as an opportunity to advance a cease-fire to end the ongoing Gaza war.
“This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza,” Harris said in her own Oct. 17 press statement. “And it must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.”
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, en route to Germany, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated the Biden administration’s position that Sinwar posed a significant obstacle to a cease-fire deal in Gaza.
“At various points along the way, Sinwar was more interested in causing mayhem and chaos and death than in actually trying to achieve a ceasefire and hostage deal. And we repeatedly saw moments where it was him, in particular, who stood in the way of making progress towards a ceasefire and hostage deal,” Sullivan said.
Hamas has sought to condition the release of the remaining Gaza hostages on the Israeli government releasing potentially hundreds of Palestinian detainees and withdrawing its forces from the Gaza Strip. The Biden administration signaled progress toward a deal in May, but talks stalled out by August.
Sullivan said “there were other obstacles too along the way” but Sinwar was “a critical one” and his death does “present an opportunity to find a way forward that gets the hostages home, brings the war to an end, brings us to a day after.”
The national security adviser declined to say whether such a cease-fire could be possible by the end of the year, stating “I have long since given up on making predictions or drawing timelines.”
Republican political leaders joined in celebrating the news.
“Sinwar’s life was the embodiment of evil and marked by hatred for all that is good in the world. His death brings hope for all those who seek to live in freedom, and relief to Israelis he has sought to oppress,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in an Oct. 17 press statement.
“Yahya Sinwar was the mastermind of the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, and today, families shattered on October 7th have a small measure of justice,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. “Israel has yet again demonstrated what it means to impose costs on adversaries, and America ought to take notes.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a post on X that Sinwar’s death marks a “mighty blow” to both Hamas and Iran.
“The ultimate revenge against Iran and their terrorist proxies is to replace terrorism and hate with sustainable security, peace and prosperity for the region,” Graham said.