The riddle of Hamas's new Gaza leader: extremist or pragmatist?
Yahya Sinwar, the Hebrew-speaking leader of Hamas in Gaza who spent 22 years in Israeli prison, is known more for stealth military action than speech-making.
When Palestinians launched the still-running series of Friday protests along the Gaza-Israel fence this spring, Mr. Sinwar vowed to keep the protests going until the border itself was breached.
The demonstrations, held to denounce Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza and symbolize Gazans’ yearning to return to ancestral homes in Israel, marked “a new phase in the Palestinian national struggle on the road to liberation,” he declared.
To emphasize his call for perseverance, he used especially grisly language, saying instead of Palestinians going hungry as they eke out an existence
Man of the peopleOvertures to FatahRelease from prison