Strategic mistake: Israel ‘immortalized’ Hamas leader Sinwar by leaking combat images
Israel‘s choice to share and publicize every detail of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death has been deemed by some media professionals as a strategic mistake as it quickly led to the glorification of Sinwar’s final moments which were spent in combat against Israeli defense forces (IDF).
The images and videos shared online contradicted the Israeli narrative claiming that Sinwar was hiding in a tunnel with Israeli hostages surrounding him.
Leila Molana-Allen, the special correspondent of PBS commented, “Not sure why IDF chose to release this. For those who want to glorify Sinwar as a resistance hero, it shows him fighting to the last having lost an arm, on the frontlines with his fighters rather than hiding in a tunnel behind human shields which has been IDF’s narrative.’
A video allegedly showing the final moments of Sinwar depicts him throwing a stick at an IDF-operated drone while severely injured. In comparison to the deaths of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the before-and-after images of Sinwar’s death have generated significant “praise” on social media.
Hamas leader Sinwar’s graphic images broadcasted by Israeli TV
IDF leaked graphic photos of Sinwar’s dead body to the Israeli media. Israel-based Channel 12 broadcasted the graphic images live without adhering to global journalism standards.
“If the news about Sinwar is true, then congratulations to him for the martyrdom that only the honorable attain,” Algerian journalist Hafid Derradji, with 3.5 million followers, posted on X referring to the death of Sinwar while fighting the IDF forces.
Israel considers killing the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks as the single biggest military victory against Hamas in Gaza.
In response to the killing of Sinwar, which is seen as a significant blow to Hamas, Palestinians interviewed by the BBC in Khan Younis commented, “This war does not depend on Sinwar, Haniyeh, Mishar, or any leader or official.”
‘He will be immortalized as Omar al-Mukhtar’
One anonymous pro-Palestine social media user argued, “These images will immortalize Sinwar. In the years to come Muslims will mention him in the same breath as Omar al Mukhtar.”
Omar al-Mukhtar was an Islamic scholar turned freedom fighter who fiercely fought against Italian occupation in Libya.
Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu working for Middle East Eye also commented on the “optics” of Sinwar’s death. Without referring to videos, he observed, “people already lionizing Sinwar calling him a martyr.”
He went on, “I’m yet to see a person from Gaza on this platform who doesn’t celebrate Sinwar’s death because it happened during a skirmish in broad daylight and he died in military fatigue, fighting. Not in the tunnels. Optics.”
