He learned the way to fight Israel from his media

Martyr Yahya Sanwar learned Hebrew and studied Israeli media during his captivity. An approach that made knowing the political and media environment of this regime a part of his campaigning experience.

Zahra Eskandari, Arjan Ambassador of Culture and Culture Group: A wounded man is sitting on a chair among the ruins of a building in Rafah. His hand is injured, his face is covered with a cloth and an Israeli drone approaches him. In the last moments of his life, he throws a piece of wood towards the drone; A short movement that becomes one of the most lasting images of the Gaza war. This frame was the final image of Yahya Sanwar, one of the leaders of the Hamas movement; After its publication, the image was republished many times in the media and social networks, and among a part of the Arab and Muslim audience, it found a meaning beyond recording the last moments of a political leader.

The picture that the Israeli army released of Sanwar's final moments was supposed to show the scene of the killing of one of the most important leaders of Hamas; But its reflection was not limited to a single narrative. While these pictures were introduced in the official narrative of Israel as a sign of the defeat of Hamas, many supporters of Palestine and the resistance interpreted the same frame as a symbol of standing in the conditions of siege and until the last moments of life. The widespread republishing of images and the formation of artworks inspired by them, showed that an image can transcend its initial context of publication and become part of the media memory of a conflict.

But in order to understand why this image lasts, one must go back to the life of a man who, during his years of political activity, in addition to being in the structure of Hamas and playing a role in the developments in Gaza, had also tried to get to know Israel's society and media; A man who learned Hebrew, followed the other side's media and considered knowing the enemy a part of facing it.

Yahya Sanwar was born in Khan Yunis camp in 1962, in a Palestinian family that had left their land after the 1948 war and the displacement of Palestinians. The experience of living in a refugee camp, studying at the Islamic University of Gaza and entering into political activities shaped his life path. Arrested in 1988 and sentenced to life imprisonment, it was the beginning of a long period of captivity that continued until 2011; When the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was freed in the prisoner exchange agreement, known as Wafa al-Ahrar.

Understanding Israel through the lens of language and media

But the prison years for Senwar were not only a period of deprivation and distance from the field of political activity. To understand the importance of this part of Sanwar's life, it should be noted that language is not the only means of communication; A way to access the way of thinking of a society is to know its political sensitivities and understand the narratives it creates about itself and its enemies. By learning Hebrew and following the Israeli media, Sanwar could follow the developments of this society from its main sources and gain a more direct understanding of the political and social atmosphere of Israel.

Reading the newspapers, listening to the radio, and familiarizing himself with the narrative of the Israeli media, allowed him to read and hear the news and analysis of the other side without relying entirely on translations and interpretations. In the narratives published about him, his mastery of the Hebrew language and his knowledge of Israel's internal politics are emphasized. It is even reported that Senwar said about his familiarity with the Israeli media environment that he could write an editorial instead of the editor of an Israeli newspaper.

The importance of such knowledge should be seen beyond a language ability. In political and military conflicts, the media do not just convey the news; They play a role in shaping the public perception of strength, weakness, victory, defeat and even the future of a conflict. Knowing these mechanisms helps political activists to understand how the other side interprets events, what issues they are influenced by, and what image they present to their society.

From this point of view, Sanwar's life is an exampable example of the connection between the battlefield and the field of knowledge and narration. In order to deal with Israel, he also paid attention to knowing its language and media environment. Of course, this recognition should not be considered as the only reason for the success of the Al-Aqsa storm operation; The design and implementation of such an operation depends on a set of political, intelligence, military and organizational factors. However, the media aspect of Sanwar's life shows that knowing the enemy, in his mind and experience, was not limited to direct confrontation.

This issue becomes more important today, when wars are going on in the real field and in the media space at the same time. A public image of an event may be as influential in shaping public perception as the event itself. Sometimes, due to its visual and semantic features, an image goes beyond the initial news and becomes a sign that the audience remembers a set of concepts and feelings when they see it.

From the storm of al-Aqsa to the final frame of Rafah

Senwar has been the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip since February 2017, and after the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, he was elected as the head of the political office of this movement in August 2024. He was known as one of the central figures and one of the main designers of the Al-Aqsa storm operation on October 7, 2023; An operation that challenged Israel's security equations and started a massive war in Gaza.

Senwar's role in this operation put his name in the spotlight of the world's media; But the end of his life, due to the images that were published of the last moments of the conflict, marked another form of media representation.

On October 16, 2024, Senwar was martyred during a clash with Israeli soldiers in Rafah's Tel-Sultan neighborhood. The pictures published from the scene of the conflict showed him in a ruined building; Wounded, in difficult conditions and in the last moments of facing Israeli forces. In one of these images, he throws a piece of wood at an Israeli drone; A short movement that became one of the main elements of the symbolic meaning of the image in later reprints.

This frame quickly went beyond the scope of a field report. The media and social network users published it many times, and in the narratives of the supporters of Palestine and the resistance, the image was interpreted as a sign of standing in the conditions of siege and military inequality. In this representation, what was important was not just the moment of death of a Hamas leader; Rather, it was an image of a person who, even in the last moments, was facing a force equipped with advanced equipment and did not stop facing.

When the image goes beyond the news

In the days after Senwar's martyrdom, the image of his last moments was reproduced in different formats; From reposting on social networks to posters, artwork and media content. This repetition transformed the image from a document of a specific moment into a recognizable sign; A sign that, for a part of the audience, evoked concepts such as resistance, stability and not accepting surrender.

One of the important points in this process is the difference between publishing news and making a symbol. News records an event at a specific time and place; But the symbol creates a wider meaning from that event and allows the audience to link it to their experiences, beliefs and ideals. The final image of Sanwar traveled such a path in the media supporting the resistance.

In the meantime, repetition played a decisive role. Every time the image was published on a page, it was accompanied by a description, title or commentary. Some considered it a sign of the invincibility of human will, and others emphasized the contrast between the physical condition of Sanwar and the military capabilities of the other side. As a result, the image was gradually separated from a moment in the conflict field and became a part of the resistance narrative in a wider framework.

This trend shows that in today's media environment, the durability of an image is not only dependent on its visual quality; The historical context, the person in the picture, the time of publication and the method of republishing are also important. In this sense, the final image of Sinwar had several characteristics: he was already a well-known figure in the Palestinian developments; His martyrdom occurred in the middle of the Gaza war; And the published frame of his last moments had a high capacity for symbolic interpretation due to the contrast between the destruction of the environment, his condition and the presence of the drone.

Senwar and visual memory of the young generation

The impact of such images on teenagers and young people should be examined in the broader context of media consumption of the new generation. For a generation that receives a significant part of its information from social networks, short videos, images and reposted content, a visual frame may stick in the mind sooner and longer than a long report. The image compresses the complexity of an event into a brief moment, allowing the audience to relate to the meaning extracted from it without having to fully familiarize themselves with all the historical details.

In the media representation of Senwar, this feature was linked to his political background and the role attributed to him in the Tofan al-Aqsa operation. The audience, who had previously heard the name of Senwar as the leader of Hamas, after the release of the final image, faced a face that was depicted in the narrative of the supporters of the resistance, not in an official and ceremonial situation, but in the middle of destruction and conflict. This difference provided the basis for the formation of a narrative about the presence of the leader in the field and his standing until the last moments.

For some of the teenagers and young people of the resistance axis, such an image could become a compact and transferable model; A pattern that embodied abstract concepts such as stability and resistance in a specific scene. In this sense, the importance of the image was not only in who was seen in it, but also in how the audience interpreted it and what concepts they conveyed to each other through it.

War of narratives; Another field to face

Senwar's life, from the perspective of knowing the Israeli language and media and the fate of his final image, connects the two sides of the same issue: the importance of narrative in conflict. On the first hand, we are faced with a leader who learned Hebrew and followed the other side's media to gain direct knowledge of its intellectual and political atmosphere. On the other hand, there is an image that was republished in the media after his martyrdom and found a meaning beyond the report of a military event in the context of supporting resistance narratives.

These two aspects, although they are not the same, show that the media is not the only means of information in contemporary conflicts. The media is both a source of knowledge of the other party and a space for the formation of public perception of an event. One side tries to find a more accurate understanding of the other party by studying his sources; On the other hand, published images and narratives from the conflict field can affect the collective memory and the audience's perception of that event.

Therefore, examining the final image of Senwar is not just about dealing with a famous photo; The issue is how its meaning is constructed and circulated in the public space. Why does one image among hundreds of images of war find such a lasting capacity? How can media repetition turn a frame into a recognizable symbol? And what factors make a part of the young generation consider that image as carrying concepts beyond the moment recorded in it?

The answer to these questions requires simultaneous attention to the historical context, characteristics of the image, the character present in it, and the method of republishing. The meaning of the image cannot be limited solely to the intention of its publisher, nor can the impressions formed around it be considered independent of historical reality. The image gains meaning at the intersection of these factors; The meaning may be different among different audiences.

The importance of this story is not limited to the person of Sinwar. This picture shows that in the era of social networks, sometimes a frame can cross the boundaries of time and place and become a part of collective memory. In such a situation, it is not possible to understand the war of narratives only by examining the news and official positions; It should be seen how the images are selected and republished, what meanings are formed around them and why some of them remain in the minds of the audience.