A professor has sparked outraged after she accused Israel of murdering Hamas terror leader Yahya Sinwar.
Heidi Matthews, assistant professor of law at York University in Toronto, posted her thoughts on social media following the death of Sinwar last week.
Sinwar is widely considered to be the chief architect the October 7 atrocity, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage by Hamas.
He was killed last week by chance after an hour-long firefight of trainee soldiers on a routine operation in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip.
In a post to X, Matthews said she believed that under international law Sinwar had been murdered – as he was injured and no longer fighting.
Sinwar is widely considered to be the chief architect the October 7 massacre, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage by Hamas
Heidi Matthews, Assistant Professor of Law at York University in Toronto, posted her thoughts on social media following the death of Sinwar last week
IDF soldiers are seen here carrying Sinwar’s body out of a wrecked building on a stretcher
She said: ‘There is good reason to believe that Sinwar was, in fact, murdered by the IDF.
‘Canada should be demanding that Israel comply with an independent investigation into the circumstances of Sinwar’s death.’
Quoting the Geneva Convention, Matthews says that by killing Sinwar the IDF violated parts of the agreement and committed a war crime.
She deems him as being hors to combat, no longer in the fight, due to him being wounded which means that under international law he cannot be targeted.
Matthews continues: ‘The relevant question is whether Sinwar was incapacitated by his wounds such that he was disabled from participating in fighting and no longer posed a threat.
‘This question is easier to answer when fighters are unconscious or on the ground.
‘It can be difficult to determine whether a fighter has been so seriously wounded that they are no longer capable of taking hostile action.
‘But a judgment must be made; it is impermissible to ‘double tap’ a wounded fighter to ensure they are dead.’
Footage emerged last week of Sinwar in his final moments, as he is seen covered in dust and missing a hand while he throws a stick at a drone.
Matthews said the footage summarized the ‘entire Israel-Palestine ‘conflict’, with the stick standing in for the ubiquitous resistance tool of stone throwing’
She said the footage summarized the ‘entire Israel-Palestine ‘conflict’, with the stick standing in for the ubiquitous resistance tool of stone throwing’.
Basing her argument around the footage, she continues: ‘Hamas is now claiming that Sinwar ‘met his end standing brave, with his head held high, holding his firearm, firing until the last breath, until the last moment of his life’.
She continued: ‘This doesn’t fit well with the video, which doesn’t appear to show a gun. The IDF says Sinwar was ‘found with a gun’. Some accounts mention grenades.
‘Reuters describes Sinwar as being killed ‘as he lay dying in the ruins of a building in south Gaza, slumped in a chair covered in dust.’
She adds that an account by The Guardian editor Julian Borger described a tank round being directed against Sinwar after the drone backed away.
Matthews continues: ‘This would be ‘double tapping’, and is illegal’, before adding that an autopsy recorded a bullet wound to head as his cause of death.
She said: ‘A CNN interview with the pathologist who performed Sinwar’s autopsy confirms the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.
‘He arrived at this cause of death before the IDF released its story about what happened, i.e. that tank fire killed him.’
Footage released by the IDF Friday shows an Israeli tank blasting the building Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was hiding in
Since she shared her thoughts, she has been slammed on X, where her post has been viewed over 1.9 million times.
One person replied: ‘You wasted your time with all these posts. We do not give a crap, he got the death he deserved.
‘In fact, he got off easy for all the deaths he caused in Gaza and in Israel.’
Another said: ‘What a ridiculous comment. Of course he was killed by the IDF! Just as the people massacred on 7th October were killed by Hamas on his orders.’
While comment editor at the National Post Carson Jerema penned an article headlined ‘Defund the professors. Every last one’.
He wrote: ‘That some university professors have left-wing politics, or use progressive theories in their work, is not, in and of itself, a problem. Problems arise when rigour is thrown out the window.
‘Even if we give Matthews the benefit of the doubt and assume she is simply applying her expertise to the circumstances of Sinwar’s killing, her emphasis on international law appears to evaporate when crimes are being committed against Israelis.’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk