IDF publishes letter from Yahya Sinwar's 10-year-old son to his father

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has released a letter it says was written by Ibrahim, the son of Yahya Sinwar, to his father. According to the IDF spokesperson, the boy was 10 years old when he wrote it at the start of the war, and Israeli soldiers recovered the document in the Gaza Strip in 2024. The military said it chose to publish the letter to mark two years since Sinwar was killed.

In the letter, the IDF says, Ibrahim tells his father he misses him and writes: "I want to hold a Kalashnikov and shoot Jews." In a post on X, the military said the boy described spending his free time making "guns, tanks, and Kalashnikovs" from paper and cardboard, and that the letter came with drawings of weapons, tanks and missiles. The IDF presented it as evidence of how the ideology of Hamas shapes children in Gaza.

Who Yahya Sinwar was

Yahya Sinwar led Hamas in the Gaza Strip and is regarded in Israel as the man chiefly responsible for the attack that opened the war. Commentator Amit Segal, in his post on the letter, referred to him as the architect of the massacre. Israel has said it killed Sinwar, and the IDF framed this release around the second anniversary of that killing. The reports do not give further detail on his death, and this article does not add any.

What the letter is reported to say

Several Hebrew-language outlets published versions of the text, all attributing it to the IDF. The fullest rendering came from Abu Ali Express, a Telegram channel that covers Arab affairs, which described Ibrahim as Sinwar's eldest son. In that version the boy opens with a religious invocation, says he wants to embrace his father and see him victorious, and asks when his father will come to sleep beside him. He adds that he hopes the war will end so he can see his father safe and well, and closes with a traditional Islamic blessing.

The same passage about holding a Kalashnikov and shooting Jews appears in every account. The version posted by Amit Segal also includes a line in which the boy says he wants to proclaim that God is the greatest before taking up the rifle. An Israeli television news channel quoted correspondent Dafna Liel describing the boy as making rifles and tanks out of paper and cardboard.

The drawings

The IDF said only that drawings of weapons, tanks and missiles accompanied the letter. News.co.il gave a more specific description, reporting that the drawings showed tanks near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, as well as missiles being fired towards Israel. That outlet also wrote that the letter was produced during the war.

How the accounts differ

The reports agree on the core of the story: the letter, its author, his age as given by the IDF, and the line about shooting Jews. They diverge on some details.

• When it was written. The IDF says the letter dates from the start of the war and was found in 2024. Abu Ali Express says the letter itself was written in 2024.
• The wording. Each outlet produced its own translation, so phrasing differs. The religious declaration appears only in the version shared by Amit Segal, and the eldest-son description appears only in Abu Ali Express.
• The drawings. Only News.co.il describes their content in detail.

Why the IDF publishes material like this

During the war, the Israeli military has periodically released documents, recordings and other items it says its forces recovered in Gaza. Such releases are typically timed to anniversaries or announcements and are accompanied by the military's own interpretation, as with this letter, which the IDF linked directly to what it called Hamas's ideology of hatred and violence.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports explain where in the Gaza Strip the letter was found, or why it is being published now rather than when it was recovered, beyond the anniversary. The IDF has not said how it established that Ibrahim wrote it, and no outlet reports having seen the original document independently. The reports do not say whether the letter ever reached Sinwar, and they give no information about where Ibrahim is today. The original Arabic text has not been published in the material available to us, so every quotation here rests on translations.