By Samia Nakhoul
(Reuters) - Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza who masterminded the bloodiest attack on Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, made no secret of his desire to strike hard against Israel, the country that imprisoned him for half his adult life.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor's office said on Monday it was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence chief and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes in the Gaza war, including Sinwar.
Israel has denied committing war crimes in the war, triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
The ICC's decision "equates the victim with the executioner", a senior Hamas official told Reuters.
It will be up to the court's pre-trial judges to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to issue warrants.
In December 2022, Sinwar told a Gaza rally that Hamas would deploy a "flood" of fighters and rockets against Israel, in a speech that bore the hallmarks of crowd-pleasing hyperbole.
Less than a year later, Israel discovered it was no idle threat, when Hamas fighters broke through Gaza's fence on Oct. 7, 2023 and staged an assault that killed 1,200 people, shattering Israel's reputation as an invincible enemy.
"We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide," he said in his address.
Sinwar began his career in the Palestinian militant group as a ruthless enforcer who punished and killed collaborators with Israel, before rising to a leadership role after release from prison in 2011 and his return to Gaza.
The war set off by the Oct. 7 attack has laid waste to Gaza, as Israel seeks to eliminate the militant group. Sinwar has been at the top of Israel's assassination list during the war.
23 YEARS IN PRISON
In December 2022, Sinwar told a rally in Gaza that Hamas would deploy fighters and rockets in a fierce strike on Israel, the nation that imprisoned him for 23 years before he was freed and rose to a leadership role in the militant group.
The speech by Hamas' leader in Gaza to thousands of cheering supporters bore the hallmarks of crowd-pleasing hyperbole. Less than a year later, Israel discovered it was no idle threat, when Hamas fighters broke through Gaza's fence and staged an assault that shattered Israel's reputation as an invincible enemy.
"We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide," he said during his address.
By the time of the speech, Sinwar and the militant Islamists' military leader Mohammed Deif had already hatched secret plans for the Oct. 7 assault. In response, Israel has bombarded and invaded Gaza, killing about 35,000 people according to Gaza health authorities.
Heard in hindsight, Sinwar's words carry the foreboding of what was to come, an attack Hamas dubbed the "flood of Al-Aqsa," a reference to the mosque in Jerusalem that is one of Islam's holiest shrines and stands on a place revered by Jews as Temple Mount. Al-Aqsa has been subject to repeated Israeli raids.
Sinwar directed military operations along with Deif and another commander. He also led negotiations for prisoner-hostage swaps, possibly from bunkers beneath Gaza.
In the days after Oct. 7, Sinwar was seen by some of the captured Israelis in the tunnels, freed hostages have said. Hamas and Israeli officials did not publicly comment on the reported sighting.
The question of hostages and prisoner swaps is personal for Sinwar, who was one of 1,027 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons in a swap for a single Israeli soldier held in Gaza in 2011. He has vowed to free all Palestinians held in Israel.
'LIVING ON BORROWED TIME'
Born in the Khan Younis refugee camp, Sinwar, 61 was elected as Hamas' leader in Gaza in 2017. After Oct. 7, Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said he and other leaders were "living on borrowed time."
Before he was jailed, Sinwar rose to head the Al-Majd security apparatus which tracked and killed Palestinians accused of providing information on Hamas to Israel’s secret service.
Both Hamas leaders and Israeli officials who knew Sinwar agree he is devoted to Hamas to an extraordinary level.
One Hamas figure based in Lebanon described him as "puritanical...with an amazing ability of endurance."
Michael Koubi, a former Shin Bet official who interrogated Sinwar for 180 hours in prison, said he clearly stood out for his ability to intimidate and command. Koubi once asked the militant, then aged 28 or 29, why he was not already married.
"He told me Hamas is my wife, Hamas is my child. Hamas for me is everything."
Sinwar was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to consecutive life terms accused of planning the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians.
In jail, his hard line against collaborators continued, Israelis who dealt with him have said.
At time, "he did not have Jewish blood on his hands, he had Palestinian blood on his hands," Yuval Bitton, previously head of the Israel Prison Service's intelligence division, told Channel 12 TV in October.
Bitton, a dentist who treated Sinwar, said Israeli medics removed a tumour in Sinwar's brain in 2004. "We saved his life and this is his thanks," said Bitton, referring to Oct. 7. Bitton's nephew was killed during the attack and his body taken to Gaza by the militants.
Koubi described Sinwar as being devoted to the destruction of Israel and killing Jews. The senior Israeli official described him as a "psychopath", adding that "I don't think the way he grasps reality is similar to more rational and pragmatic terrorists".
Bitton added that the Hamas leader was willing to allow huge suffering for a cause and had once in prison led 1,600 prisoners to the brink of a mass hunger strike until death if needed in protest at the treatment of two men in isolation.
"He was ready to pay any price for the principle," he said.
(Reporting by Stephen Farrell and Jonathan Saul in London, Samia Nakhoul in Beirut and Nidal Al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Michael Georgy, Frank Jack Daniel, William Maclean)
