Hamas leader’s grand plan for Gaza in ruins on October 7 anniversary

W earing a cloak over his head and strapped with ammunition belts, Yahya Sinwar faced the camera and recited a poem: “For crimson freedom there is a door, knocked by every blood-soaked hand.’’ Hunched over, he is seen striding across the rubble-strewn sands of Rafah past a bombed-out house. Most commented 1 Kemi Badenoch woos Middle England back to the ‘no-nonsense’ centre ground Politics 245 comments 2 ‘Without violence, no one pays attention’: France returns to barricades Europe 83 comments 3 Deadly strike on Ukraine homes ‘was birthday gift for Putin’ Russia-Ukraine war 58 comments 4 Christmas cards become ‘winter cards’ at primary school Scotland 36 comments 5 Alex Cole-Hamilton defends ‘faked interviews with journalist’ Scotland 12 comments The video, released by Hamas this week to mark the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, captures the final days in Gaza of the group’s ruthless leader, who devised the assault in which more than 1,100 Israelis were killed and 251 were taken hostage. @warfareanalysis/x Three years later, Gaza lies in ruins and many of the territory’s residents live in tents.

An estimated 74,000 Palestinians, out of a population of two million, have been killed in the war and many survivors are homeless. Top stories 1 How American billionaires are shaping the future of warfare Technology 2 George Clooney, newly French, plans Italian restaurant in Provence Europe Internationally, their plight has become a cause célèbre. Countries such as the UK recognise Palestinian statehood and celebrities line up to express their support.

However, in Gaza, where disease and poverty now prevail, there is mostly despair. Advertisement At ground zero of October 7, Binyamin Netanyahu draws both derision and devotion “I remember October 7, 2023, as the beginning of a war that changed the world. I knew the consequences would be terrible,’’ said Abdullah Abu Mohsen, who was a 19-year-old university student at the time of the attacks. “We lost our home, our belongings, friends and the life we had imagined for ourselves.’’

Debris in Rafah where Sinwar’s military vest and chair were found Hani Alshaer/Anadolu/Getty Images Gaza has never been a prosperous place. In 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled the war that led to the creation of Israel , many moved to the narrow strip of the Mediterranean coast that was then captured by Egypt. Palestinians leave in 1948 Alamy It fell to Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War and was finally handed to a Palestinian autonomous government in 2005.

Sinwar and a child at a rally in Gaza City in May 2021 Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Getty Images After Hamas violently took over the territory two years later, Israel imposed a partial blockade on Gaza and fought three wars with its militant rulers in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Advertisement What next for Hamas? Still armed and still demanding power Over the past three years, Gaza has once again became a war zone and journalists are restricted from entering.

However, satellite images released by Google Maps last month show a wasteland of bomb-damaged buildings and miles of tents. Displaced Palestinians shelter in a makeshift camp Xinhua/Shutterstock “There are no schools, no healthcare, no jobs, people are living on aid, disease is rampant, the garbage, the rubble … it’s a humanitarian crisis,’’ said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist who managed to leave the territory after war broke out.

“I don’t know how we, as Palestinians, can get out of this miserable situation.’’ Gazans reflect on life in the territory today The October 7 attack hardened Israeli public opinion in a manner unprecedented in the history of the decades-long Palestinian conflict, when Israel had suffered numerous attacks and two attempted uprisings. Top stories 1 The key takeaways from Kemi Badenoch’s conference speech Politics 2 Southampton’s Tonda Eckert escapes ban for ‘Spygate’ scandal Football 3 Give every child a stake in Britain’s future Economics 4 The remarkable Test recall of Australia batsman who beat cancer Cricket Moshe Dayan, the legendary Israeli defence minister, once warned his countrymen about how resentment and enmity would build among Palestinians, even before Israel’s often brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank from 1967.

Advertisement Speaking in 1956 at the funeral of a murdered Israeli in a kibbutz close to the Gazan border, Dayan warned: “Beyond the border’s furrow an ocean of hatred and an urge for vengeance rises, waiting for the moment that calm will blunt our readiness.” Moshe Dayan in 1978 Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images That moment came on October 7, 2023, when Hamas’s attack by land, sea and air took Israel by surprise, despite it having been informed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates that the group was planning something.

The Israeli government insists it received no specific warnings in advance of the attack. Israeli soldiers emerge from a tunnel near the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis last year Amir Levy/Getty Images The assault, during which dozens of Palestinians cheered as Hamas carried hostages and slain Israelis into Gaza, helped turn the decades-old conflict into one of “ethno-tribalism,’’ said Yezid Sayigh, a Palestinian academic. Arrests made at pro-Palestine protest on October 7 anniversary “I’m furious at Hamas for basically erasing all we fought for over decades, and aghast at those who can’t maintain the critical faculty to distinguish opposition to Israeli occupation and war crimes,’’ he wrote at the time.

Advertisement Three years later, Sayigh, a former professor at King’s College London, said Hamas’s attack and the ensuing war had left the Palestinians “more scattered and leaderless than ever before’’. “I feel the damage to Palestinians as a people and the notion of Palestinian statehood continues and in many ways deepens. Palestinian society has been brutalised and in some ways it’s being dismantled,’’ he told The Times. Pro-Palestinian protesters at King’s College, Cambridge, two years ago Leon Neal/Getty Images The ramifications have spread beyond Gaza.

Hamas had hoped the attack would stop the negotiations between Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia to normalise ties between the Gulf kingdom and Israel. While it succeeded, for now, in that aim, the attack also led to a series of wars that devastated its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, then Iran, its patron and leader of the so-called axis of resistance. Sinwar was killed in a chance encounter with Israeli troops little more than a year after the attack, on October 16, 2024.

His last act was to fling a stick at an Israeli drone as it filmed him before a tank shell destroyed the building where he had sought refuge. Sinwar’s death is celebrated in Jerusalem John Wessels/AFP His corpse was discovered in the rubble. When his face was unmasked by soldiers, his forehead had caved in and his mouth gaped open, as if in mid-speech. Reminiscent of the ‘“shattered visage’’ of the statue of Ozymandias in Shelley’s poem, in death the Hamas leader looked out at nothing more than the ruins of his ambition.