Jerusalem: After Hamas attacked Israel in October, igniting the war in the Gaza Strip, Israeli leaders described the group’s most senior official in the territory, Yahya Sinwar, as a “dead man walking”. Considering him an architect of the raid, Israel has portrayed Sinwar’s assassination as a major goal of its devastating counter-attack.

Seven months later, Sinwar’s survival is emblematic of the failures of Israel’s war, which has ravaged much of Gaza but left Hamas’ top leadership largely intact and failed to free most of the captives taken during the October attack.

Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas militant group’s leader in the Gaza Strip pirctured in 2018. Credit: Khalil Hamra

Even as........

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