The Israeli Defense Forces and the country's security agencies jointly confirmed the death of Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian independence armed group Hamas, on Thursday.

On October 7 of last year, Sinwar was assumed to be the main planner of the sudden attack on Israel. As a result, Israel and the United States were frantically searching for this fearless hero of Gaza.

They deployed thousands of troops and drones to the Gaza Strip to search for him. In addition, the Jewish country took the help of electronic devices and various people.

But Sinwar, who has snow-white hair and black eyebrows, has sort of disappeared since the attacks in Israel last year. In that attack, 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage by Hamas.

Sinwar was born in October 1962 in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. He studied at Khan Younis School before enrolling at the Islamic University of Gaza. At the university, he earned a bachelor's degree in Arabic studies. In 2011, he married a woman from the Gaza Strip. They have three children.

The 62-year-old leader spent 23 years of his life in Israeli prisons. He was first arrested in 1982 at the age of 20 for involvement in sabotage activities. He was placed under four months of administrative detention. He was re-arrested just a week after his release and held in prison for six months without trial. He was arrested again in 1985 and sentenced to eight months in prison.

He was arrested again in 1988 and tried for the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers, as well as for leading the killing of four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. In this case, he was sentenced to four rounds of life imprisonment.

During his imprisonment, Sinwar headed the Supreme Leadership Committee of Hamas prisoners in an Israeli prison. Helped manage clashes with prison authorities during successive hunger strikes. During this time he was transferred to different prisons.

Yahya Sinwar tried twice to escape from prison, but both attempts failed.

Sinwar used his prison life to read and write, learn Hebrew, and write and translate several books on politics, security, and literature. He was released in 2011 as part of a Hamas prisoner exchange with Israel.

After his release, Sinwar was elected to the Hamas Political Bureau during the movement's internal elections in 2012, where he was in charge of security affairs. In 2013, he assumed leadership of the Al-Qassem Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

Yahya Sinwar was elected as the head of the movement's political bureau in Gaza in 2017 and was re-elected for a four-year term in the movement's internal elections in 2021.

Besides, he is the founder of the security system of Hamas known as 'Majd'. It mainly handles internal security matters such as conducting investigations into suspected Israeli agents and tracking Israeli intelligence and security officials.

Sinwar's house has been bombed several times. He is described as a cautious person. He rarely spoke publicly.

Sinwar is considered the mastermind of the October 7, 2024, attack on Israel by Hamas.

Hamas elected Sinwar as its top leader in August after Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Tehran.