Al Azhar mourns heroic martyrs of Palestinian Resistance

CAIRO – 18 October 2024: Al-Azhar Al-Sharif mourns the heroic "Martyrs of the Palestinian Resistance," who have fallen victim to a criminal Zionist hand that spreads corruption and devastation across our Arab lands, killing, destroying, and occupying while the world watches in paralysis—both in will and thought.

The international community remains silent, as if muted like the dead, and international law holds little value, scarcely worth the ink with which it was written.

Al-Azhar affirms that the martyrs of the "Palestinian Resistance" were true fighters who instilled fear in their enemies. They were not the terrorists the enemy seeks to portray them as, but steadfast defenders of their homeland. They clung to their soil, and Allah granted them martyrdom as they repelled aggression, defending their land, their cause, and our cause—the cause of Arabs and Muslims across the globe.

In mourning the “Martyrs of the Palestinian Resistance,” Al-Azhar emphasizes the need to expose the lies and deception of the Zionist media machine, which seeks to distort the image of the Palestinian resistance in the minds of our youth and children. It seeks to label them as terrorists, yet we assert that resistance, defending one’s homeland, and sacrificing for it is an unparalleled honor.

Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas leader, officially announced the martyrdom of the movement's leader Yahya Sinwar during clashes with Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip.

In a televised speech on Friday, al-Hayya said, 'with all meanings of pride, dignity, and honor, Hamas mourns to our Palestinian people, to our Arab and Islamic nation, and to the free people of the world, a man among the noblest and bravest of men—a man who devoted his life to Palestine and gave his soul in the way of God to liberate it'. God spoke the truth, and He rewarded him by choosing him as a martyr, just as He did for his brothers in faith who came before him, al-Hayya said.

'We mourn the great national leader, The martyr and resistance fighter, Yahya Sinwar (Abu Ibrahim), Head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Commander of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle', al-Hayya said.

'He ascended as a hero and a martyr, advancing without hesitation, weapon in hand, engaging and confronting the occupation forces at the forefront of the battle lines. He moved between all the combat sites, steadfast and resolute on the land of Gaza, defending Palestine and its sanctities, inspiring a spirit of steadfastness, patience, and resistance', al-Hayya said.

'To our great people, to our Arab and Islamic nation, and to the free people of the world', al-Hayya said.

On August 6, 2024, Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the 7th of October incidents last year, was chosen by the movement to be the head of the movement’s political bureau, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated by an Israeli raid on his residence in the Iranian capital Tehran.

Sinwar was born on October 19, 1962, in the Khan Yunis refugee camp after Israelis displaced his family from the city of Majdal Asqalan in 1948.

He was one of the key leaders in Hamas and was close to the late Hamas Leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who had tasked him with establishing the Jihad and Da'wa Organization (Majd).

In 1982, Sinwar was arrested for six months in Far'a prison due to his resistance activities. Six years later in 1988, Israel re-arrested him and handed down him four life sentences. He was kept in Israeli prisons for 23, including four years in solitary confinement. During his imprisonment, Sinwar and other Palestinian detainees led a series of hunger strikes, the most prominent of which had taken place in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004.

He obtained a bachelor's degree in Arabic language at the Islamic University of Gaza and obtained.  Additionally, he was fluent in Hebrew and had many political and security publications and translations.

After he was released from an Israeli prison in the 2011 Gilaat Shalit prisoner swap deal, Sinwar married in 2012 and had three children, two boys and a girl (Ibrahim, Abdullah, and Reda).