WSJ says some Hamas officials have reservations about tactic but haven’t spoken up, as terror chief said to talk about the war and his role in ‘increasingly grandiose terms’
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, increasingly viewed as a “megalomaniac” by senior officials in the terror group, ordered commanders in the West Bank to renew suicide attacks in Israel shortly after he replaced the slain Ismail Haniyeh as head of the organization’s politburo, the Wall Street Journal
reported Wednesday.
The order was given shortly before a
failed suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in August, the report said, citing unnamed Arab intelligence officials.
Some senior Hamas members reportedly had reservations about the decision, but have not been speaking up on the matter since Sinwar took power.
Palestinian suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians were commonplace during the bloody Second Intifada in the early 2000s,
killing hundreds of Israelis, as well as in the 1990s, but have become rare since Israel built a security barrier around the West Bank and boosted its intelligence-gathering methods to thwart the bombers.
The Journal report also confirmed previous reports that Sinwar has recently renewed contact with ceasefire-and-hostage deal mediators, citing unnamed Arab officials involved in the negotiations.