The new leader of Hamas’s political bureau was the architect of the 7 October attack, according to Israel.

Yahya Sinwar has led Hamas within Gaza since 2017, having joined its ranks in the early 1980s.

Following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, Sinwar succeeded him as head of the political bureau, taking control of the entire group.

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Believed to be the architect of the 7 October attacks, he is Israel’s most wanted – a “dead man walking”, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who at one point claimed to have him “surrounded and isolated” in a bunker.

Just over a year since the most recent escalation in the region began, on 17 October the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) tentatively said they were “checking the possibility” that a strike in Gaza had killed the 61-year-old whose nicknames include “the face of evil”, “butcher of Khan Younis”, and “man of 12” – in reference to 12 suspected informers he is believed to have killed.

Granted fatwa by Hamas founder to kill collaborators

Sinwar was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in 1962.

He studied Arabic at the Islamic University of Gaza, which was founded in 1978 by the two men who went on to set up Hamas almost a decade later.

There he became particularly close to one of them, the cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Yassin and Mahmoud al-Zahar co-founded Hamas in 1987 as a Gaza-based political splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to Israeli reports, Sinwar said Yassin granted him a fatwa (a ruling in Islamic law) to kill anyone suspected of collaborating with the Israelis.

He was first arrested for subversive activities in 1982. In prison, he met other key members of Hamas, including Salah Shehade, the former leader of its military wing the Qassam Brigades.

After being arrested and imprisoned again in 1985, he was put in charge of Hamas’s internal security branch, the Majd Force, which sought out and killed suspected Israeli spies.

Dr Ahron Bregman, a former Israeli army major – and now senior teaching fellow in war studies and the Arab-Israeli conflict at King’s College London, said: “The Israelis tried for many years to recruit him as a collaborator himself, offering him massive incentives.

“But it never worked with Sinwar. In fact he became notorious for killing Palestinians suspected of collaborating.”

Learnt fluent Hebrew in prison

In 1988 he helped abduct and kill two Israeli Defence Force soldiers, which saw him sentenced to 22 years in an Israeli prison.

Despite being incarcerated, Sinwar used the time to his advantage – learning fluent Hebrew to better understand his enemy and ascending to become leader of Hamas prisoners in Israel.

Dr Bregman says: “He would read Israeli newspapers on a daily basis. He understood them way better than they understood him – hence his ability to deceive them and catch them off guard by executing his military operation so effectively in October 2023.”

Fifteen years into his prison sentence, he went on Israeli television and spoke in Hebrew, calling for a truce with Hamas.

He was released in 2011 as part of the swap of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for just one hostage Israeli soldier – Gilad Shalit.

Commenting on his imprisonment afterwards, Sinwar said: “They wanted the prison to be a grave for us. A mill to grind our will, determination and bodies.

“But thank God, with our belief in our cause we turned the prison into sanctuaries of worship and academies for study.”

Forced suspected informer to bury his own brother

Back in Gaza he continued to increase his influence among Hamas’s highest ranks.

He remained committed to his original task of unmasking and killing traitors – both Israeli collaborators and members of rival militant groups.

A former member of Israeli intelligence told the Financial Times that he once boasted about forcing a Hamas member suspected of informing for a competing faction to “bury his own brother alive… handing him a spoon to finish the job”.

In 2015 he is thought to have been involved in the torture and killing of fellow Hamas commander Mahmoud Ishtiwi.

He was accused of embezzlement and “moral crimes”, including alleged homosexual activity, with Sinwar thought to have orchestrated his murder over fears he could compromise the group.

Commenting on how he killed another collaborator, he told how he and a group of others blindfolded Ishitiwi and drove him to a makeshift grave, before strangling him with a kaffiyeh (Arabic male headdress) and burying him there.

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‘Mythical figure’ in Palestinian history

The same year he is thought to have killed Ishtiwi, he was designated a terrorist by the US government.

He replaced Haniyeh as Hamas leader in Gaza in early 2017 and was re-elected in 2021, later surviving an assassination attempt.

Three years later, following Haniyeh’s own eventual assassination in Tehran, Sinwar would succeed him once more as political chief.

As leader he has increased the group’s use of force, stepping up protests and rocket fire at the Israeli border.

With his military background, he is seen as someone capable of uniting Hamas’s armed and political wings.

Dr Bregman describes him as a “man of few words” and a “natural leader… charismatic, secretive and manipulative”.

“He will be remembered as the architect of the 7 October attacks and the person who inflicted on the Israelis their most terrible disaster since the establishment of their state in 1948,” he adds.

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, also blamed Sinwar for the 7 October attack and said Israel would continue to pursue him.

Although his methods have been “barbaric”, Dr Bregman believes it will be seen, “from a Palestinian point of view, in spite of the terrible price they are paying now, as a great victory”.

“Sinwar has earned a place in the pantheon of great Palestinian leaders,” he adds.

Testimonies from people on the ground in Gaza, however, suggest his violent methods have left many of them disillusioned with Hamas.

With Israel’s promise to destroy Hamas and all of its leaders, Dr Bregman believes they will “get him in the end”.

On 17 October, just over a year after the 7 October attacks, the IDF said: “During IDF operations in Gaza, 3 terrorists were eliminated.

“The IDF and ISA are checking the possibility that one of the terrorists was Yahya Sinwar.

“At this stage, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed.”

Dr Bregman says: “Whatever his fate, there is no doubt Sinwar will go down in Palestinian history as a mythical figure.”

Former One Direction star Liam Payne was posting on Snapchat just hours before his death in Buenos Aires.

The 31-year-old singer died outside a hotel in Argentina’s capital, after falling from the third floor of a hotel, police said.

On Snapchat, he spoke to his followers about his plans for one of his days on holiday, saying it was a “lovely day in Argentina” and he planned to play polo.

The videos appear to be posted days after they were filmed, as they feature Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy, who uploaded videos of her return to Florida on social media earlier in the week.

“Today, we ride. We’re going to ride some horses,” he said, in one of the videos.

“Think I’m going to play polo again, which is going to put me out of action for about six weeks.

“It’s so hard to do, number one, my back and my neck from swinging that hammer around… or mallet, I think it’s called if you’re in the know.

“It hurts a lot, it’s very tough to do.”

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He also gave his followers a tour of the room he was staying in with Cassidy, who he has been dating since October 2022.

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“Haha, loser, weirdo,” he joked with her about the fact she was leaving Argentina.

“Obviously, we’re going to go home and see our dog,” he said.

The pair recently fostered a dog called Nala who they’ve nicknamed Noonie, Chooch, Narls and Choochie, according to the videos.

Payne and Cassidy said they’d been having lie-ins every morning, and the singer told his followers they were enjoying coffee and breakfast, “even though it’s like 1pm”.

“We literally sleep in every day until like 12,” Cassidy said in the background.

“We’re such losers,” she said.

The singer finished his update on Snapchat by sharing some of the “amazing” art in their room.

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“On occasion I do paint and I like doing art,” he said, but admitted he’d not found more art he was “in love with” except for a picture hanging on the wall.

“They’ve got the most amazing art in this house,” he said.

Italy has made it illegal for couples to travel abroad to have a baby via surrogacy.

A bill, passed on Wednesday, extends a ban that forbids surrogacy within Italy to include those who travel to countries such as the United States or Canada where the practice is legal.

Those who break the law could face prison sentences of up to two years and fines of up to €1m (£836,000).

The proposed law was first brought about by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s right-wing Brothers of Italy party and seeks to promote what she believes are traditional family values.

However, critics have argued it makes it progressively harder for LGBTQ couples to become legal parents.

In a protest on Tuesday ahead of the vote in Italy’s parliament, demonstrators said the government was lashing out at LGBTQ people and damaging those who wanted to have children, despite a sharply declining birth rate in Italy.

“If someone has a baby, they should be given a medal. Here instead you are sent to jail… if you don’t have children in the traditional way,” Franco Grillini, an activist for LGBTQ rights in Italy, told the Reuters news agency.

“This is a monstrous law. No country in the world has such a thing.”

The bill passed through the upper house of the senate by 84 votes to 58. It was approved by the lower house last year.

During the debate, Brothers of Italy senator Lavinia Mennuni said the party wanted to “uproot” the phenomenon of “surrogacy tourism”.

“Motherhood is absolutely unique, it absolutely cannot be surrogated, and it is the foundation of our civilisation,” she said.

President of the charity Rainbow Families Alessia Crocini said 90% of Italians who choose surrogacy are heterosexual couples, but they mostly do so in secret, meaning the new ban would, by de facto, affect only gay couples.

Back in April, Ms Meloni called surrogacy an “inhuman” practice when speaking at an event in Rome. She said the process treated children as supermarket products, echoing a position expressed by the Catholic Church.

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When vying to become Italy’s first female prime minister, Ms Meloni promised “family-friendly policies” and, much to the anger of the LGBTQ community, lauds the priority of a child being brought up by a mother and father – she also opposes fostering by same-sex couples.

The clampdown on surrogacy coincides with a backdrop of falling birthrates in Italy. National statistics institute ISTAT published in March that births had dropped to a record low in 2023 – the 15th consecutive annual decline.