Yahya Sinwar Finally Speaks — and Lies

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. (AP/Adel Hana) AP/Adel Hana

Will the mainstream media report on his original statement, pointing out its absurdities?

Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, has finally broken the silence he has maintained ever since October 7. He uttered a series of lies about how well the Hamas “resistance” was doing, presumably to stiffen the resolve of Hamas combatants in the face of colossal losses. More on Yahya Sinwar’s fantasy world can be found here: “In first public message since Oct. 7, Sinwar says Hamas won’t surrender,” by Gianluca Pacchiani, Times of Israel, December 25, 2023:

In his first public message since the massacres of October 7, Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar on Monday remained defiant, while grossly inflating the terror group’s achievements in the war.

Sinwar falsely claimed that the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, had “targeted” over 5,000 Israeli soldiers and officers, and killed about third of them — that is, over 1,500.

According to the IDF, 156 soldiers have so far been killed in the ground operation in Gaza. Over 300 members of the security forces were killed in Hamas’s initial October 7 onslaught.

The terror leader also gave inflated claims of the number of Israeli soldiers injured in the war, and the amount of Israeli military equipment that has been destroyed. He claimed that around 3,500 troops were seriously wounded or disabled, whereas that figure according to the IDF stands at less than 200.

The IDF has a long and unbroken record of telling the truth, both about its own casualties, and also about those casualties suffered by the enemy. Hamas, by contrast, has a record of lying, as it did about the so-called “Jenin massacre,” where it claimed that “500 civilians” had been killed by the IDF, and it turned out that “52 combatants” had died fighting an Israeli force. More recently, Hamas accused the IDF of conducting an airstrike that hit the Al-Ahli hospital and killed “500 people.” It turned out that there had been no airstrike, but rather, a rocket launched into Israel from Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad had misfired and hit not the hospital itself, but the parking lot beside it, and killed not 500 people, but “between 10 and 50” Palestinians. And finally there is Hamas’ claim that it did not rape girls, and did not kill children, on October 7, but the Israelis themselves did so in order to be able to blame Hamas.

He [Sinwar] further said that Hamas had completely or partially destroyed 750 Israeli military vehicles. While the IDF has not provided official figures, the commander of the IDF Technology and Maintenance Corps, Brig. Gen. Ariel Shima, said in early November that very few IDF vehicles had been severely damaged beyond repair, and that most vehicles that are hit return to fighting.

If such a large number — 750 — of IDF military vehicles, had been damaged or destroyed by Hamas, one would expect videos of those destroyed vehicles would have been posted by Hamas. But there are no videos, nor satellite images taken by others, of those “750 vehicles” that Sinwar claims to have damaged or destroyed. Judging by information posted by the IDF, it seems that less than 100 military vehicles including a few Merkava tanks, have been put permanently out of condition. Sinwar’s claim is grossly exaggerated. Elder of Ziyon comments on Sinwar’s remarks:

Al Jazeera published Sinwar’s message, and then deleted it. It may be because it was not meant for the public but only as a message to Hamas’ political bureau, and Al Jazeera follows Hamas’ instructions to the letter.

Certainly no one is reporting that the statement was a hoax.

While the statement has been widely covered in Israeli media as well as Arab media, the liveblogs of mainstream media have not mentioned it as of this writing. Nothing in the New York Times or CNN’s liveblogs of the war. Also nothing at NBC or AP, all of which are updated several times a day.

Have those major media outlets — NBC, AP, CNN, New York Times — refrained from reporting on Sinwar’s statement because they know it to be false and they don’t want to expose Sinwar, a terrorist murderer, to ridicule? It wouldn’t be the first time those members of the mainstream media have run interference for Palestinian terror groups.

Sinwar’s statement was apparently meant not for the public, but as a report to Hamas leaders now sitting in Doha. He was lying, even to them, about the “achievements” of Hamas in Gaza, greatly exaggerating the number of IDF soldiers killed and wounded, and the number of IDF military vehicles destroyed or damaged. The figures he reported were so obviously inflated — 750 military vehicles destroyed, 1,500 IDF soldiers killed — that he and those around him thought better of it, and quickly took his statement off the Internet. Will the mainstream media report on his original statement, pointing out its absurdities? Or will it continue to ignore his remarks altogether, because Sinwar’s lies were too blatant, and why should the MSM help the settler-colonial-apartheid genocidal state of Israel in the battle for public opinion by making a mockery of Yahya Sinwar?