War is a brutal business, and I understand how collateral damage is sometimes unavoidable, but the statements from Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaze extolling the deaths of fellow Gazans as a way to achieve victory are pretty horrifying.
Not just because he believes this, but because he is confident enough in this belief that he says the quiet part out loud:
For months, Yahya Sinwar has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire-and-hostages deal with Israel. Behind his decision, messages the Hamas military leader in Gaza has sent to mediators show, is a calculation that more fighting—and more Palestinian civilian deaths—work to his advantage.
“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials.
Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas units in the Gaza Strip’s south has disrupted humanitarian-aid shipments, caused mounting civilian casualties and intensified international criticism of Israel’s efforts to eradicate the Islamist extremist group.
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In dozens of messages—reviewed by The Wall Street Journal—that Sinwar has transmitted to cease-fire negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas. The messages were shared by multiple people with differing views of Sinwar.
More than 37,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, most of them civilians, Palestinian officials say. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants. Health authorities said almost 300 Palestinians were killed Saturday in an Israeli raid that rescued four hostages kept in captivity in homes surrounded by civilians—driving home for some Palestinians their role as pawns for Hamas.
In one message to Hamas leaders in Doha, Sinwar cited civilian losses in national-liberation conflicts in places such as Algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from France, saying, “these are necessary sacrifices.”
In an April 11 letter to Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh after three of Haniyeh’s adult sons were killed by an Israeli airstrike, Sinwar wrote that their deaths and those of other Palestinians would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”
Using the deaths of civilians is a repulsive tactic. Using the deaths of your own civilians as a tactic is mind-bogglingly beyond that.
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In 2018, Sinwar supported weekly protests at the fence between Gaza and Israeli territory. Fearful of a breach in the barrier, the Israeli military fired on Palestinians and agitators who came too close. It was all part of the plan.
“We make the headlines only with blood,” Sinwar said in the interview at the time with an Italian journalist. “No blood, no news.”
When you have maniacs like Sinwar and Netanyahu running the show on either side of the war, I don't see how this can end well for anyone.
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