Israel has officially confirmed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead, killed in a chance encounter Wednesday with infantry and armored units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In a joint statement Thursday evening local time, titled “Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization who was responsible for planning and executing the October 7th Massacre, has been eliminated,” the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA) declared:

The IDF and ISA confirm that after a year-long pursuit, yesterday (Wednesday), October 16, 2024, IDF soldiers from the Southern Command eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip. Yahya Sinwar planned and executed the October 7th Massacre, promoted his murderous ideology both before and during the war, and was responsible for the murder and abduction of many Israelis.

Yahya Sinwar was eliminated after hiding for the past year behind the civilian population of Gaza, both above and below ground in Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip. The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination.

In recent weeks, IDF and ISA forces, under the command of the Southern Command, have been operating in the southern Gaza Strip, following IDF and ISA intelligence that indicated the suspected locations of senior members of Hamas. ​IDF soldiers of the 828th Brigade (Bislach) operating in the area identified and eliminated three terrorists. After completing the process of identifying the body, it can be confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was eliminated.

The IDF added on X (formerly Twitter):

As Breitbart News reported, the IDF suspected that Sinwar may have been inadvertently killed after soldiers directed tank fire at a building in which three terrorists had been spotted. Afterwards, infantry soldiers discovered, to their surprise, a body that resembled Sinwar.

The body was taken to Israel for further examination, including dental, DNA, and fingerprint verification. It is unclear how many of these checks were completed before Israeli officials concluded that the dead body was indeed Sinwar’s.

According to Israel’s Army Radio, Sinwar was found with passports on his body, as well as a quantity of cash. He was apparently trying to flee Gaza to Egypt, leaving Hamas and the Palestinian people behind as he attempted to escape.

Yayha Sinwar holds up a Palestinian child with a gun, part of Hamas’s indoctrination program in Gaza (Screenshot / IDF / Twitter)

Sinwar was once thought to have surrounded himself with hostages to prevent Israel from killing him in an airstrike. On Thursday it was revealed that those hostages were the ones executed in a tunnel in late August, including U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, as Israeli soldiers closed in. Sinwar had evidently been on the run ever since. His body was found next to those of senior Hamas commanders known to be close to him.

The Biden-Harris administration had, just days earlier, threatened Israel with an arms embargo unless it did more to “surge” aid into Gaza and trimmed its military operations there. Harris had also pushed for a ceasefire earlier in the war, even before the release of hostages had been achieved. Other nations, such as France, had called for an arms embargo to stop the war.

Sinwar was killed near the Philadelphi corridor in southern Gaza, on the Gaza-Egypt border, an area from which the Biden-Harris administration had been urging Israel to withdraw for a ceasefire deal.

Israelis are now hoping Sinwar’s death can bring about the release of the remaining 101 hostages, more than half of whom may still be alive. There are also hopes for an end to the war in Gaza.

Update: Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant declared: “Israel today closed an account of many years’ standing with Yanya Sinwar… The IDF will pursue everyone who harms our people and our forces, and will settle accounts with him.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.