Sinwar elected as Hamas’ new top leader – Who he is and what it means
Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniya (L) and Yayah Sinwar, just released from Israeli prison, 2011
Robert Inlakesh in The Palestine Chronicle on Yahya Sinwar:
Sinwar was born on October 29, 1962, in the Khan Younis refugee camp. In 1948, his parents were ethnically cleansed from their homes in Majdal-Askalan, now taken over by Israeli settlers and re-named Ashkelon.
Scarred by his experiences growing up as a displaced person, growing up under the military occupation of the Gaza Strip – which took place in 1967 – his father said that “Yahya’s life was full of agony due to the Zionist aggression. Since his childhood, he was determined to resist the occupation.”
A high performer academically at school, he went on to study at the Islamic University in Gaza, where he helped pioneer the Islamic Bloc and held a number of student council positions at the university.
In 1982, Sinwar and other members of the student council had traveled to visit Palestinian women in Jenin who had allegedly been the victims of a poisoning attempt by Israelis. It was in response to this visit that he was arrested and placed under administrative detention (held without charge nor trial) for six months, with the allegation against him being that he participated in subversive Islamist activities.
During his detention, Sinwar befriended other activists, such as Saleh Shehade who would go on to lead the armed wing of Hamas until his assassination in 2002. Sinwar was responsible for setting up a security network, known as Majd.
The Majd operated in secret while the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned organization that preceded Hamas, the Mujamma Islamiyya, remained as a non-combative group until the establishment of Hamas in late 1987.