Israeli doctors saved the life of Hamas leader, whom they now blame for the October 7 terrorist attacks, when he was in prison, reports say

• Yahya Sinwar has been Hamas' leader in Gaza and a member of its political bureau since 2017.
• Sinwar has spent 24 years in prison and Israel has arrested him several times, the report said.

Israeli doctors saved the Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar's life when he was in prison in the country, Orit Adato, a former prison commissioner of Israel, said, The Times of Israel reported.

Adato told the publication that Sinwar survived a brain tumor thanks to an operation Israeli doctors carried out while Sinwar was serving multiple life sentences for the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1988.

Responding to claims that Israeli prisons were holding Palestinian prisoners in inhumane conditions, Adato brought up Sinwar's case and said it was the only reason he's alive today.

"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.

An Israeli military spokesperson said Sinwar was behind the October 7 terrorist attacks that killed 1,400 people in Israel and that he was their top target in decapitating the Hamas leadership.

Avi Issacharoff, an Israeli journalist specializing in Palestinian affairs, told Al Jazeera that Israeli prison officials told him that Sinwar was treated for head surgery in about 2006 after suffering severe pain, which made him panic.

Sinwar, 60, became the leader and a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in 2017, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.

He has spent 24 years in prison, and Israeli law enforcement has arrested him multiple times, the think tank said. He left prison fluent in Hebrew after he was released in a prisoner swap for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.

He is thought to be one of the key figures linking Hamas' politburo with its armed faction, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the think tank added.

Sinwar has been called a 'dead man walking'

The Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht recently called Sinwar a "dead man walking" after accusing him of playing a pivotal role in organizing the October 7 attacks, which also saw about 200 hostages taken into Gaza.

"I do believe that Deif committed the plan but the real mind, the brain of this attack was mainly Yahya Sinwar," Michael Milshtein, a former intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces, told The Wall Street Journal.

"He really understands how the Israelis will behave, and how they think, and how they will respond," he added.

The Times of Israel reported that security sources outside Gaza had come to believe Mohammed Deif and Sinwar were sheltering in a network of tunnels in the enclave built to resist the intense bombing campaign the IDF launched after the attacks on communities and military bases in southern Israel.

Sinwar was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, according to The Jewish Virtual Library. He pursued Arabic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza.

In the 1980s, Sinwar's job was to kill Gazans who collaborated with Israel, The Economist said.

In 2015, the US Department of State designated him as a terrorist.