His image as a Palestinian hero is now confirmed.. The Guardian: Why will the “death of the warrior” Sinwar make him a martyr in Gaza and beyond?

The British newspaper, The Guardian, said that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a fighter will make him a martyr inside and outside Gaza, as his lofty afterlife as a Palestinian hero now seems certain.

The newspaper published an article by writer Julian Burger, in which he pointed out the emergence of contradictions in the official Israeli narrative about the last moments of Yahya Sinwar's life since his death, which seems likely to increase the martyrdom doctrine that is rapidly growing around the Hamas leader.

An Israeli autopsy on Sinwar concluded that he died from a gunshot wound to the head, contradicting the initial Israeli account that he was killed by a tank shell fired at the destroyed building where he fought his final battle.

According to Chen Kugel, director of Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine, who conducted the autopsy, the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. In an interview with The New York Times, Kugel would not speculate who fired the fatal shot, whether during a skirmish with Israeli soldiers before the tank shell was fired, after he was found in the rubble of the building, or elsewhere.

According to the writer, the speculation surrounding Sinwar’s death has fueled a martyrdom doctrine that has spread widely across social media since the Hamas leader’s death was confirmed.

The fact that he was killed wearing combat fatigues and a combat vest after shooting and throwing grenades at Israeli soldiers, and even attacking an IDF drone with a wooden stick he threw with his remaining arm in a final gesture of defiance, all sets Sinwar apart from his predecessors, he said.

When Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated by missiles fired from an Israeli army helicopter in 2004, he was being pushed in a wheelchair after prayers at a Gaza mosque.

Little of his body remains to be photographed, but the imagined images of the deadly missile strike became part of the iconography that appeared almost immediately on walls across the occupied territories, alongside images of the white-bearded leader ascending to the sky. Images of Yassin are still common in Gaza and the West Bank, often showing him alongside more recent martyrs.

The writer said that Sinwar left behind the body of a war-torn fighter, which some Palestinians may compare to the last image of Che Guevara, the Argentine doctor who fought in the Cuban revolution but was eventually killed by the Bolivian army in 1967, and became a symbol of his cause. The writer considered that the death of the fighter Sinwar will certainly secure him first place in what he described as the Palestinian “pantheon” - a reference to holiness and pride.

According to the writer, to further help him shape his desired narrative, the Hamas leader left behind a text, in the form of a 2004 autobiographical novel called “Thorns and Cloves,” which he wrote in Israeli prison and smuggled out in parts.

Sinwar’s alter ego in the novel, Ibrahim, is committed to the cause and expects Palestinians to be “willing to sacrifice everything for their dignity and beliefs.” Ibrahim asks: Why negotiate with Israel when Hamas can “impose other rules of the game”?

This is what Sinwar thought he was doing with the October 7 attack, and what he clearly hoped would be his legacy. The myth surrounding him, which he painstakingly cultivated while he was still alive, seems to be kept alive by thousands of posters and street murals.