What Does Yahya Sinwar’s Death Mean

Critical Questions by Jon B. Alterman

Published October 17, 2024

The Israeli government announced today that its soldiers had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a firefight in southern Gaza. Sinwar had led Hamas in Gaza since 2017, and he was elected the chairman of the Hamas political bureau in August 2024. Sinwar was a hardliner who felt Palestinians were too conciliatory toward Israel. He was the mastermind of Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and he was thought to have been hiding underground for much of the time since.

Q1: Does Yahya Sinwar's death mean the end of the war in Gaza?

A1: The war in Gaza is not over, but it has moved to a new phase. Hamas will be fractured as a fighting force, and some groups within Hamas are likely to want to double down on violence while others may seek to preserve options for the future. For security reasons, Sinwar was not directing daily operations, so we shouldn't expect Hamas's capacity to quickly degrade. Sinwar seemed strongly opposed to compromise, so his death makes some sort of settlement more possible. At the same time, the lack of a single credible Hamas leader means it will be hard to push some parts of the organization toward a ceasefire. Overall, levels of fighting against Israel are likely to diminish in the coming days. Still, we are likely to see some sort of leadership struggle within Hamas. That could turn the group's violence inward for a time, and comprehensively ending the war in Gaza is likely some way off.

Q2: What will happen with the hostages?

A2: There are simultaneously a number of possible outcomes for the hostages taken by Hamas. It's our understanding that Hamas does not control all of the hostages, and even different groups within Hamas holding hostages may take different approaches to their captives. Some may execute hostages in retribution for Sinwar's death, some may seek to trade their hostages' freedom for their own, and some may simply abandon hostages out of fear of what comes next. Prior negotiating efforts were all based on the idea that Sinwar had a line of connection to most of those holding hostages, and he could shape their actions. The picture is much murkier now, and we are likely to see a diverse array of outcomes. We do not know how many of the hostages are alive right now; some are likely to be freed, and others killed in the coming days.

Q3: What will the future of Gaza look like?

A3: This question on Gaza's future has become more urgent, but the answer has not become much clearer. Sinwar's death is important to Israelis who wanted to ensure that Hamas did not resurrect itself in Gaza. Because many Palestinians regarded Sinwar as a charismatic figure with credibility, his death weakens Hamas's control over Gaza's population. At the same time, Israel does not seem to have given enough thought to how to transition away from a military occupation in Gaza. It has continued to articulate its ambitious goals for a Gaza that Hamas does not control, but there is no obvious pathway toward achieving it, and Israel has resisted many of the proposals that involve a role for the Palestinian National Authority as a secular national institution to lead the governance effort. Over the coming weeks, a range of international actors-including the United States, Europe, and Arab states-are likely to push the Israelis to move forward more briskly on this effort.

Q4: What will the future of Hamas look like?

A4: Hamas remains appealing to many Palestinians, who despair of a negotiated end to Israel's role in Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli assassinations of previous Hamas leaders have not dampened that appeal, and Sinwar's death is unlikely to, either. But a growing number of Gazans seem to blame Hamas and Sinwar for making life unbearable, and for providing no positive pathway forward. In the next several months, we may see an effort to create a sort of national, nonpartisan, and technocratic Palestinian governance mechanism that would include people with sympathies toward Hamas along with many others. What Israel will tolerate, and whether this lays the groundwork for a Hamas resurgence or dilutes Hamas to a point where it is no longer threatening, remains unclear to everyone. Israel has some agency here, but it does not have control. One big uncertainty is that many foreign actors who want to help build non-Hamas rule in Gaza want to do so as part of a pathway toward a Palestinian state, which is anathema to many in Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition (and according to an April poll, 81 percent of Israeli Jews). Whether this is a barrier to broader engagement in a post-Hamas future, or whether Israel and others can reach some understanding on this, will be a focus of discussions for the next several months.

Q5: How will this play in Israeli politics?

A5: In the immediate term, Sinwar's death is a massive victory for Netanyahu. It is a huge "I told you so" to people who were arguing he should have taken a hostage and ceasefire deal with Sinwar over the summer. It creates a possible pathway for Israel to wind down its military operations from a position of much greater Israeli strength and much greater Hamas weakness. But concern for the well-being of the hostages will soon emerge as an issue of great Israeli public concern, and his coalition is likely to be hard-pressed to agree on the next steps. Many thought Netanyahu's political career was at an end months ago. He has been politically resurrected, and Sinwar's killing will now be held up as his greatest triumph.

Jon B. Alterman is a senior vice president, holds the Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and is director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Critical Questions is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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