Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas, is killed in a firefight during the Gaza war

Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar was a Palestinian militant and politician who served as fourth chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from August 2024, and as the second leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from February 2017, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh in both roles. He was killed in a clash with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in October 2024.

The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas, is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.

The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and Israel that has been fought since 7 October 2023, as part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflicts dating back to the 20th century. On 7 October 2023, Hamas-led militant groups launched a surprise attack on Israel, in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, were killed, and 251 taken hostage with the stated goal of forcing Israel to release Palestinian prisoners. Since the start of the Israeli offensive that followed to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, over 61,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, almost half of them women and children, and more than 152,000 injured. A study in The Lancet estimated 64,260 deaths in Gaza from traumatic injuries by June 2024, while noting a potentially larger death toll when "indirect" deaths are included. As of May 2025, a comparable figure for traumatic injury deaths would be 93,000.

October 16 is the 289th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 76 days remain until the end of the year.