Yahya Sinwar: Who was the Hamas leader?

An Israeli government assessment of Sinwar during his time in prison described his character as “cruel, authoritative, influential and with unusual abilities of endurance, cunning and manipulative, content with little… Keeps secrets even inside prison amongst other prisoners… Has the ability to carry crowds”.

Yaari’s assessment of Sinwar, built up over the times they met, was that he was a psychopath. “[But] to say about Sinwar, ‘Sinwar is a psychopath, full stop,’ would be a mistake” he said, “because then you will miss this strange, complex figure”.

He was, Yaari said, “extremely cunning, shrewd – a guy who knows to switch on and off a type of personal charm”.

When Sinwar would tell him Israel must be destroyed and insist there was no place for Jewish people in Palestine, “he would joke, ‘Maybe we’ll make an exception of you’”.

While incarcerated Sinwar had become fluent in Hebrew, reading Israeli newspapers. Yaari said Sinwar always preferred to speak Hebrew with him, even though Yaari was fluent in Arabic.

“He sought to improve his Hebrew,” Yaari said. “I think he wanted to benefit from somebody who spoke higher Hebrew than the prison wardens.”

Sinwar was released in 2011 as part of a deal that saw 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners released from jail in exchange for a single Israeli hostage, the IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

Shalit had been held captive for five years after being kidnapped by – amongst others – Sinwar’s brother, who is a senior Hamas military commander. Sinwar later called for more kidnappings of Israeli soldiers.

By now, Israel had ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip and Hamas was in charge, having won an election and then eliminated its rivals, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, by throwing many of its members off the tops of tall buildings.