Yahya Sinwar was in good health when killed despite year on the run, pathologist says

Doctor entrusted with carrying out post-mortem tells The National that Hamas leader had eaten well

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar at a meeting with Egypt's general intelligence chief Khaled Fawzy and others in Gaza city on October 3, 2017. AP Photo

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Yahya Sinwar appeared in good health despite having been on the run from Israeli forces for more than a year, the doctor who conducted the post mortem examination of the Hamas leader’s body in Israel told The National.

“You see that the nutritional status of the body was OK. The height-to-weight proportion was OK and it didn't look like he suffered from any special [conditions],” said Dr Chen Kugel, chief pathologist of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.

Dr Kugel lead the examination on Thursday night after Mr Sinwar’s body arrived wearing a shirt, trousers and shoes at the institute in Tel Aviv, the only agency in Israel authorised to carry out post-mortems on individuals who have died of unnatural causes. The military vest he wore in photos and videos published after his death had been removed, the doctor said.

Israel's Chief Pathologist Chen Kugel speaks to the media at the National Center for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv on October 16, 2023. AFP

Mr Sinwar was killed on Wednesday in a raid on a building in Rafah, southern Gaza, following clashes with Israeli soldiers. He was not found in the network of tunnels built underneath the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas leader had widely been thought to have lived for much of the war.

He was still in “good nutritional status,” Dr Kugel said in a phone interview. The former Hamas leader, whose death is a watershed moment in the war in Gaza, weighed 69kg according to the autopsy results, although the pathologist said he would have weighed more in life due to blood loss from the gunshot wound that killed him. At 175cm tall, Mr Sinwar’s statistics mean he would have had a Body Mass Index at death of 22.5 – considered a healthy weight by medical professionals.

Although he had conducted autopsies on Hamas militants in the past, Mr Kugel said that Mr Sinwar was, “the most infamous” of them. His body also showed signs of medical treatment he had received during his 22 years in Israeli prisons, including a small hole in his skull from an operation to remove a tumour.

“Usually when I'm doing the examination of a body, I’m not looking at who this person is,” he told The National. “I’m very detached. But it was only after a while when I looked at the table and I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, this is the person that killed the highest number of Jews since Hitler.' This is kind of strange. I have to say that I'm happy that I was able to sign his death certificate.”

Israeli security at the National Centre of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv on October 17, 2024. AFP

Mr Sinwar, who was named as Hamas's leader after the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, was the planner behind the October 7 attacks and known to be a ruthless military leader.

Western leaders have described Mr Sinwar’s death as an opportunity to put an end to the conflict that was sparked by Hamas’ raid on south Israel last year, which killed more 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken as hostages. More than 42,400 people have been killed in Gaza in the subsequent Israeli military operations there, according to health authorities in the strip.

Hamas supporters, including its main backer Iran, regard Mr Sinwar as a martyr and say that his death will spur on attacks against Israel. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X on Friday that his death was “not a deterrent but a source of inspiration for resistance fighters across the region”.

The results of tests that whether will show if Mr Sinwar had any substances in his blood have not yet been released, Mr Kugel added. It is not clear when they will become clear due to a week-long religious holiday currently taking place in Israel.

His body has now been taken to an undisclosed location, and it remains unclear if the Israeli government will use it as leverage to broker a deal to release the 101 Israelis still held hostage in Gaza.