Israel's Transportation Minister Miri Regev proposed Tuesday to the security cabinet burning the body of Hamas commander Yahya Al-Sinwar instead of returned, comparing him to Osama bin Laden and declaring “some symbols must not be returned.”
“I suggested in the cabinet to burn Yahya Al-Sinwar’s body, just as the Americans burned Osama bin Laden,” said Regev on an Israeli TV interview, referring to the 2011 operation in which US Navy SEALs killed the Al-Qaeda leader and buried his body at sea.
In Islam, cremation is strictly forbidden and seen as a desecration of the dead, violating core principles of dignity and sanctity. Regev’s call to burn Sinwar’s body is therefore as a deliberate provocation against one of the faith’s most sacred traditions.
A former military spokesperson and brigadier general, Regev has long been a hardline voice within the ruling Likud party. She entered the Knesset in 2008 and has since held multiple cabinet posts, including Minister of Culture and Sport. She currently serves as Minister of Transport.
Israel had announced it had killed Yahya Al-Sinwar, then-leader of Hamas' politburo, in October 2024.
Israel accuses Sinwar of playing a central role in orchestrating the Aqsa Flood operation. Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas fighters broke the enclave's fence and crossed into illegal Israeli settlements, taking more than 100 captives into Gaza for a prisoner exchange deal.
During ceasefire negotiations in Sharm El-Sheikh, Hamas reportedly requested the return of the bodies of brothers Yahya and Mohammed Al-Sinwar as part of a potential prisoner exchange. Israel rejected the appeal outright.
However, a source within Hamas previously told Al Manassa that the delegation did not make the return of the Al-Sinwar bodies a condition of any specific clause in the talks. The official, speaking anonymously, said the Sinwar family traces its roots to the occupied city of Asqalan, and that burying the brothers there would carry immense symbolic weight.
“The symbolism of burying them in occupied land reaffirms that all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, is one land,” the Hamas official said. “Had either of them been alive, they would have requested it themselves.”
The US-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, announced two weeks ago by former President Donald Trump, began with prisoner exchanges and the entry of humanitarian aid.
It is expected to move into a second phase this week, focusing on Gaza's post-war governance and the disarmament of Palestinian resistance groups.
Despite the deal, Israel continues to accuse Hamas of violating the truce, claiming that fighters launched attacks outside the so-called “yellow line” demarcating buffer zones.
Hamas maintains it has adhered to the conditions of the ceasefire agreement. An Israeli military official told Reuters that Israel considers these alleged violations grounds for “retaliatory action.”
