The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) just took out their target No. 1: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. 

Sinwar rose to the top position after the killing of previous leader Ismail Haniyeh in the explosion of a guesthouse in Tehran on July 30. 

Referred to by Israel as ‘The Butcher of Khan Younis’ for his violent and cruel torture methods against his enemies, both Israeli and Palestinian, Sinwar, 61, is widely seen as being behind the massacre of Israeli civilians carried out by thousands of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

The IDF has long targeted Sinwar, referring to him as a ‘dead man walking.’ 

‘We will get to him, however long it takes… and this war could be long,’ said IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht last year.

Sinwar was believed to be hiding in tunnels under Gaza.  

Sinwar was born into the ​​Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962 after his family had been displaced from Ashkelon during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War – an upbringing that heavily influenced his ideological commitment to resisting Israeli occupation. 

Sinwar co-founded Majd, Hamas’s security apparatus, in the late 1980s, which focused on finding and killing Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel. 

He was arrested and jailed in Israel in 1988 and charged with killing two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he suspected of collaborating with them.

Sinwar was sentenced to four life terms but was released in 2011 in a prisoner exchange deal for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. 

While imprisoned, Sinwar spent two decades learning Hebrew and devouring texts to understand Israeli society. He translated tens of thousands of pages of autobiographies written by the former heads of Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, from Hebrew to Arabic. 

Sinwar once told an Italian journalist, ‘Prison builds you,’ allowing you the time to think about what you believe in ‘and the price you are willing to pay’ for it. 

He reportedly tried to escape prison several times, once digging a hole in the prison floor in the hopes of tunneling under the facility and escaping through the visitor center. 

‘They wanted prison to be a grave for us, a mill to grind our will, determination and bodies,’ Sinwar once told supporters. ‘But, thank God, with our belief in our cause, we turned the prison into sanctuaries of worship and academies for study.’

Sinwar wrote a novel while in prison, ‘The Thorn and the Carnation,’ a coming-of-age story that mirrored his own life. It followed a young Gazan boy who emerged from hiding after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war to a life of Israeli occupation that made ‘chests of youth to boil like a cauldron.’ The boy’s family and friends attacked the occupiers and those who collaborated with them. 

After he was freed by the Israelis in 2011, he married and had children. 

In 2017, Sinwar was chosen as the political leader of Hamas in Gaza, shifting the region to a more militant stance and strengthening alliances with Iran and Hezbollah. 

‘Sinwar evaded multiple elimination attempts by Israeli security forces over the years, before Oct 7 and several attempts were either canceled or unsuccessful after Oct 7,’ retired IDF Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said. 

‘Sinwar used Israeli hostages as his human shield and that bought him additional time but eventually he had to be lucky every single time and Israel only needed to be lucky once and according to the preliminary information it appears that Israel was indeed lucky and did indeed take him out,’ Conricus, who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, added. 

The IDF said in a statement there were ‘no signs of the presence of hostages’ in the area surrounding him. 

But as Israeli Policy Forum head David Halperin noted, Hamas could retaliate by harming the hostages. 

‘The risk to hostages in these moments is enormous. An urgent initiative for their return is essential,’ he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

The Hostages Family Forum said in a statement it ‘commends the security forces for eliminating Sinwar, who masterminded the greatest massacre our country has ever faced, responsible for the murder of thousands and the abduction of hundreds.’

‘However, we express deep concern for the fate of the 101 men, women, elderly and children still held captive by Hamas in Gaza. We call on the Israeli government, world leaders, and mediating countries to leverage the military achievement into a diplomatic one by pursuing an immediate agreement for the release of all 101 hostages: the living for rehabilitation and the murdered for proper burial.’

The death of Sinwar could represent a turn in the tides of war – and could prompt Hamas to agree to some of Israel’s demands, or could satisfy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to ‘eliminate’ Hamas enough that he softens his own negotiating stance. 

Just weeks before a presidential election in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., endorsed former President Trump, excerpts from a new book about the longtime Republican leader reveal a fiery McConnell’s thoughts on the now-GOP presidential nominee, including that he was ‘not very smart, irascible, [and] nasty.’

Despite the quotes from him over the last several years outlined in the biography, McConnell told Fox News Digital in a statement, ‘Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now.’  

In ‘The Price of Power,’ the leader is quoted saying, ‘I can’t think of anybody I’d rather be criticized by than this sleazeball,’ in 2022, as Trump continued to attack his wife, former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, calling her ‘Coco Chow.’ 

McConnell provided a series of oral histories for the forthcoming book by Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of the Associated Press. 

In the minority leader’s quotes revealed in the book, he doesn’t hold back, reportedly slamming Trump as ‘stupid,’ ‘erratic,’ a ‘despicable human being,’ and a ‘narcissist.’ 

Despite their publicly strained relationship during and after Trump’s time in office, McConnell announced in March his endorsement of the former president, noting that he ‘earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee.’ 

Further, when Trump met with Senate Republicans in Washington, D.C., over the summer, he and McConnell shook hands. 

In the weeks after the 2020 presidential election and before the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, McConnell said, ‘It’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days’ until Trump is no longer president. 

He further praised the ‘good judgment of the American people’ for voting Trump out in 2020.

‘They’ve had just enough of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him,’ he said, according to the excerpt. 

McConnell additionally blamed Trump for the House Republicans losing the majority in the lower chamber in the 2018 midterm elections. He ‘has every characteristic you would not want a president to have,’ he said.

In 2022, the Kentucky Republican reflected on Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims, which continued to repeat. McConnell lamented, ‘Unfortunately, about half the Republicans in the country believe whatever he says.’ 

The Trump campaign did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication. 

The Senate minority leader announced in February that he would not seek the position again in the next Congress. Reigning since 2007 as Republican leader, McConnell is the longest-serving party leader in the chamber’s history. 

After the presidential election next month, the Republican senators and likely GOP senator-elects will vote in a secret ballot to decide on the next leader. The announced candidates are Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is embarking on a swing-state tour in the closing weeks of the election as Republicans fight to keep hold of their razor-thin majority in the House.

Johnson’s ‘American Revival Tour’ is making stops in Michigan this weekend, and additional events are being planned in Ohio and Pennsylvania, among other states.

Its purpose is ‘highlighting House Republicans’ agenda for the next Congress,’ Johnson’s political team told Fox News Digital.

The Louisiana Republican has been crisscrossing the country in 24 states in a bid to keep and possibly expand the GOP’s control over the House.

All three states are also being viewed as critical keys to victory for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. It is no surprise they line up considering Johnson’s efforts to unite the GOP behind the former president.

A video rolling out the tour, previewed by Fox News Digital, features Johnson pledging, ‘We are going to win the White House, the Senate, and take back the House.’

‘We’re going to secure the border, unleash our energy sector, protect our rights, support working families, pursue peace through strength,’ Johnson says in the video. ‘Everything is on the line. We will be able to restore those foundations, and we really truly can bring about an ‘American Revival.’’

Johnson has been appearing with Republican incumbents and candidates across the country while also diving into the fundraising circuit – a baptism by fire for a previously little-known policy wonk who was rocketed to the national stage after the ouster of ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., roughly a year ago.

The work he has put in appears to be paying off. Earlier this week, it was announced that Johnson raised $27.5 million from July through September, ‘the highest amount raised by a Republican Speaker of the House in the third quarter of a presidential election year,’ according to his team.

Of that, just over $8 million went to individual GOP candidates.

That cash will likely be much needed as groups aligned with the House GOP continue to trail their Democratic counterparts.

House Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), outraised the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) in August, according to numbers released late last month.

The DCCC raised $22.3 million in August, compared to $9.7 million by the NRCC. House Democrats ended that time period with more cash than the GOP as well – $87 million compared to $70.7 million.

Meanwhile, Republicans in tight races like Reps. Marianette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, and Ken Calvert, R-Calif., have been trailing their Democratic challengers in terms of funding as of the latest fundraising quarter.

Johnson is pivoting his ‘American Revival’ tour to swing states after kicking off a pro-Trump event in Texas earlier this month.

The Supreme Court is allowing the Biden administration’s climate standards on power plant emissions to remain in place, declining an emergency request to temporarily block the rule while it moves through a lower court.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a final rule in April for pollution standards under the Clean Air Act to require that all coal-fired plants running in the long term reduce 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032.  

West Virginia, along with several other Republican-led states, filed an application for a stay to put a hold on the EPA emissions standard while they challenge the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — but the request was denied by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Justice Clarence Thomas would have blocked the EPA rule, while Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in the decision, according to the denial of stay order reviewed by Fox News Digital. 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh released a statement regarding why the standards will remain in place, for now.

‘In my view, the applicants have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits as to at least some of their challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule. But because the applicants need not start compliance work until June 2025, they are unlikely to suffer irreparable harm before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decides the merits. So, this Court understandably denies the stay applications for now,’ Kavanaugh said.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is leading the challenge against the EPA rule in his state, said, ‘This is not the end of this case.’

‘We will continue to fight through the merits phase and prove this rule strips the states of important discretion while forcing plants to use technologies that don’t work in the real world,’ Morrisey said in a statement. ‘Here, the EPA again is trying to transform the nation’s entire grid, forcing power plants to shutter.’

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), however, praised the court’s ruling.

‘Today, the Supreme Court rejected that end run around our country’s bedrock legal processes,’ Vickie Patton, general counsel of EDF, wrote in a press release Wednesday after the ruling. ‘EPA’s protections will help address dangerous pollution, save people money, and create high quality jobs.’

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) just took out their target No. 1: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. 

Sinwar rose to the top position after the killing of previous leader Ismail Haniyeh in the explosion of a guesthouse in Tehran on July 30. 

Referred to by Israel as ‘The Butcher of Khan Younis’ for his violent and cruel torture methods against his enemies, both Israeli and Palestinian, Sinwar, 61, is widely seen as being behind the massacre of Israeli civilians carried out by thousands of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

The IDF has long targeted Sinwar, referring to him as a ‘dead man walking.’ 

‘We will get to him, however long it takes… and this war could be long,’ said IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht last year.

Sinwar was believed to be hiding in tunnels under Gaza.  

Sinwar was born into the ​​Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962 after his family had been displaced from Ashkelon during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War – an upbringing that heavily influenced his ideological commitment to resisting Israeli occupation. 

Sinwar co-founded Majd, Hamas’s security apparatus, in the late 1980s, which focused on finding and killing Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel. 

He was arrested and jailed in Israel in 1988 and charged with killing two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he suspected of collaborating with them.

Sinwar was sentenced to four life terms but was released in 2011 in a prisoner exchange deal for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. 

While imprisoned, Sinwar spent two decades learning Hebrew and devouring texts to understand Israeli society. He translated tens of thousands of pages of autobiographies written by the former heads of Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, from Hebrew to Arabic. 

Sinwar once told an Italian journalist, ‘Prison builds you,’ allowing you the time to think about what you believe in ‘and the price you are willing to pay’ for it. 

He reportedly tried to escape prison several times, once digging a hole in the prison floor in the hopes of tunneling under the facility and escaping through the visitor center. 

‘They wanted prison to be a grave for us, a mill to grind our will, determination and bodies,’ Sinwar once told supporters. ‘But, thank God, with our belief in our cause, we turned the prison into sanctuaries of worship and academies for study.’

Sinwar wrote a novel while in prison, ‘The Thorn and the Carnation,’ a coming-of-age story that mirrored his own life. It followed a young Gazan boy who emerged from hiding after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war to a life of Israeli occupation that made ‘chests of youth to boil like a cauldron.’ The boy’s family and friends attacked the occupiers and those who collaborated with them. 

After he was freed by the Israelis in 2011, he married and had children. 

In 2017, Sinwar was chosen as the political leader of Hamas in Gaza, shifting the region to a more militant stance and strengthening alliances with Iran and Hezbollah. 

‘Sinwar evaded multiple elimination attempts by Israeli security forces over the years, before Oct 7 and several attempts were either canceled or unsuccessful after Oct 7,’ retired IDF Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said. 

‘Sinwar used Israeli hostages as his human shield and that bought him additional time but eventually he had to be lucky every single time and Israel only needed to be lucky once and according to the preliminary information it appears that Israel was indeed lucky and did indeed take him out,’ Conricus, who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, added. 

The IDF said in a statement there were ‘no signs of the presence of hostages’ in the area surrounding him. 

But as Israeli Policy Forum head David Halperin noted, Hamas could retaliate by harming the hostages. 

‘The risk to hostages in these moments is enormous. An urgent initiative for their return is essential,’ he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

The Hostages Family Forum said in a statement it ‘commends the security forces for eliminating Sinwar, who masterminded the greatest massacre our country has ever faced, responsible for the murder of thousands and the abduction of hundreds.’

‘However, we express deep concern for the fate of the 101 men, women, elderly and children still held captive by Hamas in Gaza. We call on the Israeli government, world leaders, and mediating countries to leverage the military achievement into a diplomatic one by pursuing an immediate agreement for the release of all 101 hostages: the living for rehabilitation and the murdered for proper burial.’

The death of Sinwar could represent a turn in the tides of war – and could prompt Hamas to agree to some of Israel’s demands, or could satisfy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to ‘eliminate’ Hamas enough that he softens his own negotiating stance.