Workers World Party salutes the heroic revolutionary leader Yahya Al-Sinwar, chair of the Political Bureau of the Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement and Commander of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, who died heroically in battle along with other Hamas combatants on Oct. 17 in Gaza. While the Israeli war criminals, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with U.S. imperialist backers cheered his death, millions of people around the world, especially in West Asia, paid homage to the legendary fighter in words and deeds.

Yahya Al-Sinwar was in the forefront of the Palestinian Resistance, leading it to a new combative level. His final breaths before martyrdom, viewed globally on social media, will no doubt inspire a new generation of fighters for the national liberation of Palestine from over 76 years of white-supremacist, settler colonialism.

Al-Sinwar taught concrete skills to combatants in the making and use of the most creative weapons. He was pivotal in developing an incredible array of homemade weapons, from hang gliders to repurposed rockets built from Zionist bombs. 

Al-Sinwar helped create the vast array of tunnels that enabled the totally blockaded Palestinians in besieged Gaza to challenge the most technically sophisticated military machine. But his most important contribution was in building a militant, resilient spirit among the fighters of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades.

In planning the incredibly complex military operation of the Al Aqsa Flood, Al-Sinwar took the time to engage politically with every resistance group, from small units to long-standing political parties to the Resistance organizations across West Asia. All of this was accomplished while keeping the actual plan totally secret from the all-pervasive Mossad security forces.

Al-Sinwar was sentenced to four life terms and imprisoned for 23 years in Zionist jails. He was 49 when he was released in 2011 in a deal where 1,027 Palestinian prisoners — 280 of them serving life sentences — were released in exchange for the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Al-Sinwar’s prison writings are collected in the book “The Thorn and the Carnation,” a novel describing a journey from despair to defiance for a refugee family. The novel teaches across generations how to understand and survive the most horrific forms of forced mass displacement, land grabs, massacres, mass arrests, imprisonment and expropriation.

Resistance resurges after each martyr’s death

Since the illegal establishment of Israel, repressive efforts rubber-stamped by the imperialist powers have attempted to derail the aspirations of the Palestinian people for sovereignty and self-determination.

To the great frustration of the Zionist war criminals, time and again after every wave of heinous repression the Palestinian Resistance has resurged, regrouped and burst forth at a higher level.

Yahya Al-Sinwar’s martyrdom — preceded by the July 31 martyrdom of another Hamas leader, previous Chair of the Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh — will fail to prevent the ultimate defeat of Israel, a terrorist state so isolated and repugnant to the vast majority of the world. Israel is today a besieged, colonial outpost, totally dependent on a decaying U.S. empire.

Despite the more than one-year-long ongoing Israeli genocide that has slaughtered, maimed and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, like the current horrendous ethnic cleansing campaigns targeting the Beit Lahia and Jabalia refugee camps in northern Gaza, the resistance continues to cause daily, demoralizing casualties amongst occupying soldiers. 

This includes the elimination of Colonel Ihsan Daqsa, the highest-ranking Israeli officer killed since October 7, 2023. The Palestinian Resistance has just put out a call for the masses in West Asia to besiege the Israeli and Western embassies in their countries in protest of the ongoing atrocities.

Two days after Al-Sinwar’s death, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah liberation group fired a drone close to Netanyahu’s home on Oct. 19. Hezbollah’s persistent air strikes against illegal Zionist settlements and inside Tel Aviv, as well as ground attacks against occupying forces along its border, are causing deepening dissension and anxiety within the terrorist occupation forces. This has reached the point that growing numbers of the Israeli military are reportedly quietly refusing to return to Lebanon and Gaza.

The Iraqi masses destroyed a Saudi TV station that defamed resistance fighters as “terrorists.” Greek dockworkers successfully blocked an Israeli container full of weapons from leaving the port of Piraeus on Oct. 18.

Throughout his life Yahya Al-Sinwar focused on turning pain and grief into the rage of resistance — which does not die with the martyrdom of leaders. Resistance and steadfastness live on, as long as the yearning for liberation lasts. This will be an enduring legacy of this self-sacrificing freedom fighter who epitomizes the fact that when one resistance fighter is martyred, thousands more will rise up until final victory.

Long live the fighting spirit of Yahya Al-Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah! 

Victory to the Axis of Resistance!