‘Necessary Sacrifices’: WSJ Publishes Leaked Messages of Hamas Leader Praising Civilian Deaths in Gaza

AP Photo/Adel Hana, File

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar called the thousands of civilians killed in Gaza since October 7th “necessary sacrifices.”

Sinwar, who has been instrumental in tanking cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, told Hamas officials in messages obtained by the Journal, “We have the Israelis right where we want them.”

“In dozens of messages—reviewed by The Wall Street Journal—that Sinwar has transmitted to cease-fire negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas. The messages were shared by multiple people with differing views of Sinwar,” added the Journal in the exclusive report, adding:

In one message to Hamas leaders in Doha, Sinwar cited civilian losses in national-liberation conflicts in places such as Algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from France, saying, “these are necessary sacrifices.”

In 1989, Sinwar was found guilty of arranging the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he accused of being Israeli collaborators. He served 22 years of multiple life sentences before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded him in 2011, along with 1,025 other Palestinian prisoners, for Gilad Shalit – who was being held hostage by Hamas. The Journal notes of Sinwar’s role in the devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7th:

Though Sinwar planned and greenlighted the Oct. 7 attacks, early messages to cease-fire negotiators show he seemed surprised by the brutality of Hamas’s armed wing and other Palestinians, and how easily they committed civilian atrocities.

“Things went out of control,” Sinwar said in one of his messages, referring to gangs taking civilian women and children as hostages. “People got caught up in this, and that should not have happened.”

The Journal also obtained an April 11th letter Sinwar wrote to Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh following the death of Haniyeh’s adult sons in an Israel airstrike. Sinwar praised their deaths as helping to “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”