Sinwar, Who Organized Murder of Nachson Waxman Hy”d and Was Released in Shalit Deal, Named as Head of Hamas in Gaza

Palestinian terror movement Hamas elected a member of its armed wing as its new Gaza head today, Hamas officials said, AFP reports.

Yahya Sinwar was elected to head the Hamas political office in the Gaza Strip, the officials said. He will succeed Ismail Haniya, who is seen by many observers as the most likely successor to Hamas’s current exiled leader Khaled Meshaal.

In September 2015, Sinwar was added to the US terrorism blacklist alongside two other members of Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. He was born in the Khan Younis camp in southern Gaza.

Sinwar was an organizer of the abduction and murder of IDF soldier Nachshon Waxman.

JNI Media reports that Sinwar, who spent some twenty years in Israeli prison, and was released in the Gilad Shalit deal in 2011, was sentenced to five life sentences for murdering Arabs suspected of collaborating with Israel. While in prison, Sinwar was considered to be one of the senior leaders of the Hamas inmates, and led the hardliners who opposed any concession on the part of the Islamist terror movement in the Shalit deal.

At one point, according to Israeli media reports, Sinwar was placed in solitary confinement because he had gone wild in response to reports that Hamas was compromising on the release of prisoners with a lot of blood on their hands.

In the end, his insistence proved effective, as Israel released 1,027 prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier— Gilad Shalit. According to Israeli media sources, the released prisoners were collectively responsible for the murders of 569 Israelis.

{Matzav.com Israel News}