Hamas’s demand for the Sinwar bodies: Preparing for a ‘victory funeral’
The terrorist group understands something its enemies often forget: in modern conflict, perception is power.
By Edith Druyan
JNS
Oct 9, 2025
The Wall Street Journal revealed this week that Hamas is demanding the bodies of Mohammed and Yahya Sinwar as part of ongoing negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
This is not a bureaucratic or symbolic
gesture. It once again exposes what truly drives the terrorist
organization: propaganda and perception.
Not human life, not the reconstruction of Gaza, not the future of its people.
Hamas’s goal is purely psychological, to turn even death into a stage for its narrative of resistance and victory.
What does Hamas want?
It wants a spectacle, a “victory funeral.”
It wants to parade the Sinwars’ bodies as martyrs, to dramatize its supposed defiance of Israel, and to broadcast to the Arab world and to Gazans themselves that it has not been defeated.
For Hamas, every such scene is a propaganda triumph. Even when Gaza lies in ruins, its leaders hide underground, and thousands of families have lost everything, the organization clings to images that sustain the illusion of victory.
This is not new. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas has never deviated from this mindset.
It continues to demand, threaten and manipulate humanitarian frameworks to serve its propaganda goals. Every negotiation becomes a stage. Every delay becomes proof of its supposed strength.
Even in its dealings with the United States, and despite Qatari mediation, Hamas plays a double game. It sits at the table pretending to negotiate while simultaneously dictating terms as if it had already won the war.
The deal being discussed in Washington is not an endpoint but the beginning of yet another drawn-out process in which Hamas will extract every ounce of symbolic leverage it can.
How can a terrorist organization that should be humiliated and isolated still manage to impose its narrative on global discourse?
Because Hamas understands something its enemies often forget: in modern conflict, perception is power.
While Israel focuses on military operations, Hamas weaponizes every image, every word and every hint of weakness, turning military defeat into imagined victory.
We have seen this before. Every time Hamas has returned hostages or the bodies of hostages, it has done so as part of a calculated performance.
The return of the Bibas family’s bodies, the mother and her two children, baby Kfir and Ariel, was perhaps the most grotesque example.
The three bodies were displayed publicly on a stage in Gaza, covered with black boxes labeled with their names and photos, as Hamas operatives stood by and announced the return of the blood captives.
The desecration was so extreme that even the U.N. Human Rights Council condemned it as utterly despicable, a violation of basic human dignity and every moral principle.
This is why symbolic gestures matter.
Every concession in tone, every soft diplomatic message, every humanitarian gesture that appears innocent, these are, in Hamas’s eye,s fuel for its propaganda machine.
Hamas is not seeking peace or relief for Gazans; it is seeking to restore its lost prestige in the Arab and Muslim world through spectacle.
Israel and the international community must recognize that this war is not only about territory or hostages, it is about the narrative itself.
When Hamas demands the return of bodies, it is not trying to end suffering. It is preparing for a “victory funeral,” the ultimate act in its grotesque theater of resistance.
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