Strange but True: Israel Treated Hamas’ Gaza Leader, Yahya Sinwar, for Brain Cancer in Prison

GAZA, PALESTINE - 2023/04/14: Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas
ousef Masoud/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza-based leader of Hamas responsible for planning the October 7 terror attack on Israel, was once treated for brain cancer while serving a life sentence in Israeli prison. He was let go in a prisoner exchange and went back to killing Israelis.

The Times of Israel reported on the Sinwar case in 2017, during a hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners, when Israeli officials pushed back against complaints about conditions:

[Prison commissioner Orit Adato] pointed to Yahya Sinwar, the hard-line Hamas leader in Gaza, who, she said, is alive today only because of brain surgery he received, reportedly for a tumor, while in Israeli prison.

“When they say they are not being treated well, I would ask you and others to give a phone call to one specific person, Yahya Sinwar, who is alive nowadays just because of life-saving surgery he was given,” she said.

The terror group leader served 22 years after being given multiple life sentences for masterminding the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1988. He was released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011.

Sinwar has spent years in hiding in Gaza, but emerged in 2021, holding a child, who in turn held what looked like a rifle.

A medical expert told Breitbart News that Israel was under an ethical obligation to provide Sinwar with lifesaving treatment, since the Hippocratic Oath requires doctors to provide medical care without judging the moral character of the patients they encounter.

The fact that Sinwar did not change his mind about murdering Israelis, even after Israeli doctors saved his life, underlines the commitment of Palestinian Hamas terrorists to their radical aim of genocide against Israel and Jews in general, worldwide.

Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant vowed Saturday that Israel would kill Sinwar, adding that if the residents of Gaza were to do it themselves, they would bring a speedier end to the war. He promised that the war would eliminate Hamas from Gaza.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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