It started off without much joy. Sukkot is the feast of tabernacles or booths. It is a time of great joy and festivities. Booths are set up in the yards, balconies and sidewalks, and Jewish people eat meals and spend time with guests in the sukkah. The sobriety of the high holidays gives way to sheer delight – usually. Every year for decades we have decorated our sukkah meticulously. I usually spend weeks going over my fall menus and guest list.
This year is different. We just got back from the US; my husband is now undergoing his last post-cancer checks (hallelujah it’s been 5 years and we are thanking G-d in advance for good reports); John and I leave for vacation (more on that later) on Tuesday and frankly, who wants the hassle of building and decorating a sukkah when missiles and shrapnel are raining down?
Whether it was G-d or not, there is an incredible irony in the fact that last year Sukkot ended with the 7 October (on the Hebrew calendar) massacre by Hamas. Exactly one year later, on the first day of Sukkot, there was a shootout between the IDF and five unknown terrorists. The brigade just happened to be clearing out explosives ‘in the field’ when the five were spotted. A shootout ensued.
It was a heated battle in the middle of the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafa in Gaza. It seemed to last forever. The troops called for additional backup. A nineteen year old soldier, who had only been in the army for nine months took a shot and critically injured the leader. A drone was flown in by the IDF. It filmed a very wounded man, seemingly missing his right had, sitting on a sofa. (Hersh had his right hand shot off by a Hamas terrorist when he was abducted) The suffering terrorist tried to pick up a stick and throw it at the drone. He lifted his head slightly and was shot by the 19 year old soldier.
Shortly thereafter, a tank arrived blasting the building, killing the other Hamas fighters in the rubble. Upon inspection, the leader of the group that was shot turned out to be Yahya Sinwar himself. He was above ground, a rarity, and it was sheer coincidence that he was killed.
Not only that, but two terrorists were his bodyguards. Official identification was found on them. It included all their info and photos. Their jobs were listed as UNRWA teachers. You just cannot make this stuff up. Total irony. In Hebrew we call it hippukh.
But wait, there’s more! The Tel Sultan neighborhood lies nearly adjacent to the Philadelphi Corridor. It’s less than 1/2 mile away. International pressure was put on the Prime Minister to leave it alone. The Corridor forms the boundary between Gaza and Egypt. The IDF uncovered over 50 tunnels underground leading from Gaza into Egypt. Some were wide enough to drive large trucks through. Obviously these tunnels were used for smuggling both ways and for other nefarious purposes. The Philadelphi is now under Israeli control .
The Bislam Brigade of the 828 Battalion was the one that shot and later discovered the identity of Mr. Evil. This was the same infantry division that accidentally shot and killed the three escaped hostages , thinking they were terrorists.
Yahya Sinwar’s finding by sheer chance above ground was ironic. A flip. He seldom came out of the tunnel, and when he does reports say he disguised himself as a woman. Where he was found carries so much hippukh and symbolism. For months we heard “All eyes on Rafa.” A chant meaning IDF genocide against innocent Palestinian civilians. The international community, especially the Biden administration, pressured Israel to not go into that particular city. Kamala Harris insisted that to enter Rafah would be “a huge mistake.” She had “intently studied the maps to come to this conclusion.”
We got the news just at sunset. It flashed as an important news update on my phone. Within seconds we heard cheers erupt throughout the neighborhood. Someone was blowing a shofar. Our neighbors, Gia and Yanna came over and told us to quickly drive up to Rabin Circle the next neighborhood over.
It was amazing. People waving flags: Israeli flags, flags from the IDF units. Cars honking, emblazoned with Israeli flags, people sticking their heads out of the windows. Music was blaring from a loudspeaker. And throngs lined the circle and streets. There was no handing out of sweets or shooting off fireworks. There was no rock throwing or flag burning. It was peaceful and joyous. People were singing patriotic songs and praises to G-d. It was absolutely glorious. An enemy had been vanquished, a monster eliminated. The Hamas machine was crumbling.
Yahya Sinwar, The Butcher of Khan Younis” was the evil mastermind behind the attack on Israel last Sukkot.
The leader of Hamas oversaw both its political and military units since 2017. He was the one who directed the rocket strikes, tunnel system, infiltrationinto Israel, murders of entire families, rapes, tortures and kidnappings. In the 1990s, Sinwar got his start planning and executing lone wolf suicide bombings throughout Israel. He was the one responsible for the 2006 kidnapping of a young IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit.
Sinwar was serving a life sentence in 1988 for the murders of his fellow Palestinians, who he accused of being spies for Israel. He was brutal and maintained strict control within Hamas even from an Israeli prison. While there, he earned two university degrees, became fluent in Hebrew and learned the Israeli culture. After being diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2009, he was operated on and treated at an Israeli hospital by Jewish doctors who saved his life. In 2011, he was traded, along with 999 other convicted criminals for the return of Gilad Shalit.
Sinwar got right to work planning the 2014 Gaza War. Between 2018 and 2023 there were numerous rocket barrages from Gaza into Israel. Each time a cease fire was declared. Each time Hamas broke the ceasefire. Sinwar planned the incendiary devices attached to balloon’s which sailed from Gaza and burned large swaths of land from Gaza to Jerusalem in 2018-2020. Using international funds earmarked for humanitarian aid, Sinwar collaborated with UNRWA staff to train children from kindergarten up to be ‘resistance fighters’ against the imperialist enemy, Israel.
It has come out that Sinwar was actually in the tunnel with the six murdered hostages (including American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin) who were held in Rafah. He had been using them as human shields. When the head of Hamas sensed the IDF closing in on him in the tunnel, he ordered the starved and tortured captives shot point blank in the head, but not without a struggle first. Sinwar’s DNA was identified along with the blood of the hostages in the underground tunnel. The other terrorists that killed the hostages were identified and eliminated two weeks ago.
In a press conference last night, Netanyahu offered a reward and complete immunity with passage out of Gaza to anyone holding a hostage who would give them up. Israel Katz, the Foreign Minister stated that the death of Sinwar creates a unique opportunity for quickly freeing the hostages and establishing a Gaza free from Hamas and ultimately, Iranian control. A Sukkot miracle indeed!!!
It is crucial now, that in this in-between time (there are 8 days of the holiday. The first and last are major feast days with no work done like on Shabbat. The middle days are called kohl ha moed) we pray fervently for their release. It is a precarious time when anything can happen, both horrific and terrific. Please pray!
In the meantime, we are overjoyed that this evil man is gone. That he can terrorize Israel and the world no more.
Israel Dreams 