For over a year, Israel’s security establishment, backed by the United States, dedicated vast resources and gathered mounds of intelligences in its hunt for Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was an architect of the Oct. 7 attacks.
But in the end, a unit of trainee squad commanders unexpectedly encountered Mr. Sinwar while on an operation in southern Gaza, according to four Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The unit was on patrol in southern Gaza on Wednesday when the Israeli soldiers came upon a small group of fighters, the officials said. The soldiers — backed by drones — engaged in a firefight, and three Palestinian militants were killed.
During the battle, Israeli fire brought down part of a building where the militants had taken cover, two officials said. As the dust cleared and they began searching the building, the Israeli soldiers noticed that one of the bodies bore a shocking resemblance to the Hamas leader, the three officials said.
It was a seemingly unlikely place to find him. Israeli and U.S. intelligence had long assessed that Mr. Sinwar — fearful for his own safety — had been hiding deep underground, surrounding himself with Israeli hostages to avoid assassination.
Photographs obtained by The New York Times, some of which later circulated online, show the body of a man with facial features strongly resembling Mr. Sinwar. The man’s body has several severe wounds, including to the head and leg. The photographs show that the body has several features matching those seen in archival footage of Mr. Sinwar, including distinctive moles near his eyes and crooked teeth.
Hours after the fight was over, the soldiers approached the bodies cautiously. The area was still littered with explosive devices, two officials said. They also thought that the body of one fighter, later identified as Mr. Sinwar, was booby-trapped.
They found money and weaponry alongside the militants, according to one of the officials, who shared photos of the scene, including some in which the items were on display.
The troops, one of the officials said, were also concerned that there might be hostages in the area as well, but none were found with the fighters. There is no evidence that any of the hostages still held in Gaza were harmed during the battle, the Israeli military said.
On Thursday evening, the Israeli military, after completing its identification process, announced that Mr. Sinwar was dead.
Here is the BBC on Sinwar. The guy sounds pleasant.
Sinwar was first arrested by Israel in 1982, aged 19, for "Islamic activities" and then arrested again in 1985. It was around this time that he won the confidence of Hamas's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The two became "very, very close", said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. This relationship with the organisation's spiritual leader would later give Sinwar a "halo effect" within the movement, Michael added.
Two years after Hamas was founded in 1987, he set up the group's feared internal security organisation, the al-Majd. He was still only 25.
Al-Majd became infamous for punishing those accused of so-called morality offences - Michael said he targeted shops that stocked "sex videos" - as well as hunting down and killing anyone suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Yaari said he was responsible for numerous "brutal killings" of people suspected of co-operation with Israel. "Some of them with his own hands and he was proud of that, talking about it to me and to others."
According to Israeli officials, he later confessed to punishing a suspected informer by getting the man's brother to bury him alive, finishing the job using a spoon instead of a spade.
Yaari said he was "the kind of man who can gather around him followers, fans - together with many who are simply afraid of him and don't want to pick any fights with him".
Netanyahu leaks plans a lot so he can stop them. During the 2014 Israel-Hamas War, when Hamas was a lot weaker, the IDF wanted to completely destroy Hamas. Netanyahu leaked the IDF estimates on how many Israeli soldiers would be killed or wounded in order to not go through with it. Netanyahu has been one more the more reluctant Israeli PMs when it comes to military confrontation and using full force believe it or not because he thinks it will threaten his political survival. So the chances are that this is not going to happen and Netanyahu is leaking this to the press to cause outcry.
The Internet Archive has been taken temporarily down in a hack attack. From what I can gather it seems to be an attack from a group in Russia that says it is because of the Israel-Hamas War. The foreign policy aspects of the Israel-Hamas War are just messed up. For a lot of bien-pensant liberals in the West, it is Palestine-Ukraine-Taiwan but the actual foreign politics seem to be Palestine-Russia-PRC.
The PLO also decided to adopt the strategy of Algeria's FLN because that seemed to work in driving out the Non-Arab Algerians plus Algeria's native Jews. I read somewhere the Ho Chi Min warned against this strategy but the PLO did not listen.
I am currently reading Ghosts of A Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Yardena Schwartz. It is about the 1929 Hebron pogrom that ostensibly started over a fight regarding the Western Wall and Muslim fears that Jews were going to turn it into a synagogue, which was bad for some reason. One thing that Yardena Schwartz noted is that the 1929 Hebron pogrom made Zionism a lot more politically popular among the Jews of Palestine itself when previously there were disagreements about it since most Jews were now convinced they would not be safe under an Arab majority government.
Palestinian leadership has been pursuing the same failed strategy since before the parents of most people on this blog were born. Even when Jews were much less organized and didn't have a state or any army they failed. 10/7 was just the latest incident of "one last glorious push will send all the Jews packing." It has never worked but Palestinian leadership remains devoted to this strategy rather than realize the Jews aren't going anywhere. There is only so much that Israel can do to make the Palestinian leadership more reality based.
There are going to be some epic battles over gerrymandering in the Trump states that get new representatives. Most of the growth is coming from internal and external immigration I'm guessing and not exactly Republican. The state legislatures are probably going to want to redistrict in a way that helps the Republicans though. Also NIMBYism is shooting liberal states in the foot.
This is from 2018 but relevant because of Vance's comments about childless women. According to this article, the number of children want to have has remained remarkably consisted between 1970 and 2018, with around 2.5 children as the ideal. What has changed is the marriage rate with more and more women choosing not to marry because of a perceived or real lack of men deemed marriable material.
I agree but that wasn’t really my point. I guess my main point was that I can’t imagine such a guilt free documentary being made about early America or Canada anymore. There would be a lot more recognition of the bad things done here and the audience would expect it. The documentary about Australia was a lot more triumphant and “how Australia was won” in feeling than contemporary American and Canadian equivalents would be.
I washed a popular history video about the early history of Australia last night on YouTube. It was based for a mass Australian audience that was patriotic. The video was basically about a collection of early White immigrants/settlers to Australia who did important things like start farming, the wool industry, increased the status of women, found gold, and wrote the rules for Australian football.
It was interesting to see how another country dealt with the issue of it's original inhabitants. The documentary acknowledged the existence of the Australian Aboriginals, their conflict with the English immigrants and settlers, and how they might have contributed to Australian football and that's about it. No real big questions about guilt or what happened to them. I'm wondering if this is just because that is how these things are seen in Australia as a whole or because of the patriotic mass market the documentary was going for. I'm used to documentaries that are aimed at less mass market and ones more open to feeling guilty that "yeah, these things happened and sucked but what can you do?" was an unusual framing.
Pakistan doesn't have it's internal act together enough to do this. It is also an economic basket case and a traditionally very dependent on the United States. Iran can act as a regional player because it is better organized internally, has a more functioning economy, and isn't dependent on the United States.
There is a tendency of Westerners to take Hamas seriously rather than literally instead of seriously and literally. A big part of this is because modern diplomacy has no solution on what to do about groups like Hamas and Hezbollah if they are serious and literal. Leftists want to pretend that Hamas is just an ordinary national liberation movement rather than something that has goals completely different than that considered acceptable by the Left. So the assumption is that the Palestinians will always calm down and start becoming normal once they get their state. What if this isn't the case? Nobody knows what to do?
The Iranian Clerical Regimes knows that if they did a direct attack against Israel besides a performative rocket barrage that it would be the end of the road for them. I think you are right about the strategy. They need to keep up the Death to Israel chest thumping for political reasons but really want to challenge the Saudis.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
The NYT on how the IDF came upon Sinwar:
For over a year, Israel’s security establishment, backed by the United States, dedicated vast resources and gathered mounds of intelligences in its hunt for Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was an architect of the Oct. 7 attacks.
But in the end, a unit of trainee squad commanders unexpectedly encountered Mr. Sinwar while on an operation in southern Gaza, according to four Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The unit was on patrol in southern Gaza on Wednesday when the Israeli soldiers came upon a small group of fighters, the officials said. The soldiers — backed by drones — engaged in a firefight, and three Palestinian militants were killed.
During the battle, Israeli fire brought down part of a building where the militants had taken cover, two officials said. As the dust cleared and they began searching the building, the Israeli soldiers noticed that one of the bodies bore a shocking resemblance to the Hamas leader, the three officials said.
It was a seemingly unlikely place to find him. Israeli and U.S. intelligence had long assessed that Mr. Sinwar — fearful for his own safety — had been hiding deep underground, surrounding himself with Israeli hostages to avoid assassination.
Photographs obtained by The New York Times, some of which later circulated online, show the body of a man with facial features strongly resembling Mr. Sinwar. The man’s body has several severe wounds, including to the head and leg. The photographs show that the body has several features matching those seen in archival footage of Mr. Sinwar, including distinctive moles near his eyes and crooked teeth.
Hours after the fight was over, the soldiers approached the bodies cautiously. The area was still littered with explosive devices, two officials said. They also thought that the body of one fighter, later identified as Mr. Sinwar, was booby-trapped.
They found money and weaponry alongside the militants, according to one of the officials, who shared photos of the scene, including some in which the items were on display.
The troops, one of the officials said, were also concerned that there might be hostages in the area as well, but none were found with the fighters. There is no evidence that any of the hostages still held in Gaza were harmed during the battle, the Israeli military said.
On Thursday evening, the Israeli military, after completing its identification process, announced that Mr. Sinwar was dead.
"
Jealous? Wanting another way to make some pocket change? ;)
"
DEI was basically grift for liberals or close to it. Lots of opportunities for people to make some extra money from the liberal side of things.
"
Sinwar was also apparently killed by a Druze soldier.
"
Here is the BBC on Sinwar. The guy sounds pleasant.
Sinwar was first arrested by Israel in 1982, aged 19, for "Islamic activities" and then arrested again in 1985. It was around this time that he won the confidence of Hamas's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The two became "very, very close", said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. This relationship with the organisation's spiritual leader would later give Sinwar a "halo effect" within the movement, Michael added.
Two years after Hamas was founded in 1987, he set up the group's feared internal security organisation, the al-Majd. He was still only 25.
Al-Majd became infamous for punishing those accused of so-called morality offences - Michael said he targeted shops that stocked "sex videos" - as well as hunting down and killing anyone suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Yaari said he was responsible for numerous "brutal killings" of people suspected of co-operation with Israel. "Some of them with his own hands and he was proud of that, talking about it to me and to others."
According to Israeli officials, he later confessed to punishing a suspected informer by getting the man's brother to bury him alive, finishing the job using a spoon instead of a spade.
Yaari said he was "the kind of man who can gather around him followers, fans - together with many who are simply afraid of him and don't want to pick any fights with him".
"
Here is a non-paywalled version of the article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/magazine/dei-university-michigan.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Sk4.kMDc.ekoiqfgyDvH6&smid=url-share
"
Update. Sinwar's death has been confirmed.
"
Yahya Sinwar may be dead:
https://www.cnn.com/webview/world/live-news/israel-iran-gaza-lebanon-10-17-24-intl-hnk?Date=20241017&Profile=cnnbrk&utm_content=1729169936&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
"
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/israel-detains-soldiers-after-whatsapp-leaks-about-gaza-casualties-idUSL6N0PY5FS/
"
Netanyahu leaks plans a lot so he can stop them. During the 2014 Israel-Hamas War, when Hamas was a lot weaker, the IDF wanted to completely destroy Hamas. Netanyahu leaked the IDF estimates on how many Israeli soldiers would be killed or wounded in order to not go through with it. Netanyahu has been one more the more reluctant Israeli PMs when it comes to military confrontation and using full force believe it or not because he thinks it will threaten his political survival. So the chances are that this is not going to happen and Netanyahu is leaking this to the press to cause outcry.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39118231
"
The Internet Archive has been taken temporarily down in a hack attack. From what I can gather it seems to be an attack from a group in Russia that says it is because of the Israel-Hamas War. The foreign policy aspects of the Israel-Hamas War are just messed up. For a lot of bien-pensant liberals in the West, it is Palestine-Ukraine-Taiwan but the actual foreign politics seem to be Palestine-Russia-PRC.
"
The PLO also decided to adopt the strategy of Algeria's FLN because that seemed to work in driving out the Non-Arab Algerians plus Algeria's native Jews. I read somewhere the Ho Chi Min warned against this strategy but the PLO did not listen.
"
Russel Brand becomes a right wing Christian influencer who sells magic amulets:
https://x.com/willsommer/status/1846024507758162396?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1846024507758162396%7Ctwgr%5Eb1545730851355c27fa491728254ab6fd953d5a6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2024%2F10%2Fgetting-into-that-maga-spirit
"
I am currently reading Ghosts of A Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Yardena Schwartz. It is about the 1929 Hebron pogrom that ostensibly started over a fight regarding the Western Wall and Muslim fears that Jews were going to turn it into a synagogue, which was bad for some reason. One thing that Yardena Schwartz noted is that the 1929 Hebron pogrom made Zionism a lot more politically popular among the Jews of Palestine itself when previously there were disagreements about it since most Jews were now convinced they would not be safe under an Arab majority government.
Palestinian leadership has been pursuing the same failed strategy since before the parents of most people on this blog were born. Even when Jews were much less organized and didn't have a state or any army they failed. 10/7 was just the latest incident of "one last glorious push will send all the Jews packing." It has never worked but Palestinian leadership remains devoted to this strategy rather than realize the Jews aren't going anywhere. There is only so much that Israel can do to make the Palestinian leadership more reality based.
On “Lone Star Rising”
There are going to be some epic battles over gerrymandering in the Trump states that get new representatives. Most of the growth is coming from internal and external immigration I'm guessing and not exactly Republican. The state legislatures are probably going to want to redistrict in a way that helps the Republicans though. Also NIMBYism is shooting liberal states in the foot.
"
It would have been nice if the press could have done this more than a couple of weeks before the election.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
Could be. The people who make documentaries about early America and Canada these days are political propagandists of one sort or another.
"
This is from 2018 but relevant because of Vance's comments about childless women. According to this article, the number of children want to have has remained remarkably consisted between 1970 and 2018, with around 2.5 children as the ideal. What has changed is the marriage rate with more and more women choosing not to marry because of a perceived or real lack of men deemed marriable material.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want
"
I agree but that wasn’t really my point. I guess my main point was that I can’t imagine such a guilt free documentary being made about early America or Canada anymore. There would be a lot more recognition of the bad things done here and the audience would expect it. The documentary about Australia was a lot more triumphant and “how Australia was won” in feeling than contemporary American and Canadian equivalents would be.
"
I washed a popular history video about the early history of Australia last night on YouTube. It was based for a mass Australian audience that was patriotic. The video was basically about a collection of early White immigrants/settlers to Australia who did important things like start farming, the wool industry, increased the status of women, found gold, and wrote the rules for Australian football.
It was interesting to see how another country dealt with the issue of it's original inhabitants. The documentary acknowledged the existence of the Australian Aboriginals, their conflict with the English immigrants and settlers, and how they might have contributed to Australian football and that's about it. No real big questions about guilt or what happened to them. I'm wondering if this is just because that is how these things are seen in Australia as a whole or because of the patriotic mass market the documentary was going for. I'm used to documentaries that are aimed at less mass market and ones more open to feeling guilty that "yeah, these things happened and sucked but what can you do?" was an unusual framing.
"
I wish I was. The unvarnished truth is painful to the brains and eyes.
"
Trump decides to spend 39 minutes swaying to music in front of a live audience:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/14/trump-music-sways-town-hall/
"
Pakistan doesn't have it's internal act together enough to do this. It is also an economic basket case and a traditionally very dependent on the United States. Iran can act as a regional player because it is better organized internally, has a more functioning economy, and isn't dependent on the United States.
"
There is a tendency of Westerners to take Hamas seriously rather than literally instead of seriously and literally. A big part of this is because modern diplomacy has no solution on what to do about groups like Hamas and Hezbollah if they are serious and literal. Leftists want to pretend that Hamas is just an ordinary national liberation movement rather than something that has goals completely different than that considered acceptable by the Left. So the assumption is that the Palestinians will always calm down and start becoming normal once they get their state. What if this isn't the case? Nobody knows what to do?
"
The Iranian Clerical Regimes knows that if they did a direct attack against Israel besides a performative rocket barrage that it would be the end of the road for them. I think you are right about the strategy. They need to keep up the Death to Israel chest thumping for political reasons but really want to challenge the Saudis.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.