It was a routine patrol for a unit of Israeli soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip. Then a firefight erupted and the Israelis, backed by drones, destroyed part of a building where several militants had taken cover, Israeli officials said.

那是以色列士兵在加沙地带南部的一次例行巡逻。以色列官员说，随后爆发了交火，以色列人在无人机的支持下摧毁了一座建筑的一部分，有几名武装分子之前躲藏在里面。

When the dust cleared and they began searching the building, the soldiers found a body that bore a striking resemblance to someone they had not expected to find, a man their country had been hunting for since Oct. 7, 2023: Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas.

尘埃散去，他们开始搜索大楼，士兵们发现了一具尸体，与他们意想不到的一个人十分相似，正是他们的国家自2023年10月7日以来一直在追捕的人：哈马斯领导人叶海亚·辛瓦尔。

For more than a year, as tens of thousands of Gazans were killed, Mr. Sinwar had eluded the full force of Israel’s military and security establishment, which had dedicated every means at its disposal to finding and killing him. Many believed he was hiding underground in Gaza and had surrounded himself with hostages taken from Israel.

一年多来，上万的加沙人遇害，辛瓦尔却躲过了以色列军方和安全机构的全力追捕，他们用了一切可以动用的手段，试图找到并杀死他。许多人认为他藏在加沙地下，周围都是从以色列抓来的人质。

In the end, the Israeli officials said, he was killed above ground on Wednesday, alongside two other militants, with no sign of hostages nearby. The Israeli authorities said they had confirmed his death on Thursday, using dental records and fingerprints. His DNA was also tested for confirmation, according to one Israeli official and the White House.

以色列官员说，最终，他和另外两名武装分子于周三在地面被击毙，附近没有人质的迹象。以色列当局表示，他们已于周四通过牙科记录和指纹证实了他的死亡。据一名以色列官员和白宫称，为进行确认，他的DNA也经过了检测。

Mr. Sinwar’s death was the most severe blow to Hamas’s leadership after more than a year of escalating violence in the Middle East, and it immediately plunged the war in Gaza into a new and uncertain phase. It came less than three weeks after Israeli forces killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike south of Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

一年多来，中东地区的暴力不断升级，辛瓦尔之死是对哈马斯领导层的最严重打击，并使加沙战争立即进入了一个新的不确定阶段。不到三周前，以色列军队在黎巴嫩首都贝鲁特以南的一次空袭中击毙了真主党领导人哈桑·纳斯鲁拉。

While some hoped Mr. Sinwar’s death might signal an end to the Israeli invasion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that the offensive would not stop just because the engineer of last year’s deadly surprise attack on southern Israel had been killed.

尽管一些人希望辛瓦尔之死可能标志着以色列入侵的结束，但以色列总理内塔尼亚胡表示，攻势不会因为去年对以色列南部发动致命突袭的策划者被杀而停止。

“Today, evil took a heavy blow — the mission ahead of us is still unfinished,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement. He said that Israel remained determined to free the hostages still in Gaza, calling it an “obligation.”

内塔尼亚胡在声明中说，“今天，邪恶受到了沉重打击——我们面前的使命仍未完成。”他说，以色列依然决心解救仍在加沙的人质，称这是一项“义务”。

He told Gazans that whoever “sets aside their weapons and returns our hostages — we will allow them to leave and live.” But he warned that anyone who harmed Israeli hostages would pay with their lives.

他告诉加沙人，无论是谁，“放下武器，归还我们的人质，我们都会允许他们离开，让他们活下去。”但他警告，任何伤害以色列人质的人都将付出生命的代价。

Israeli leaders have long said they would not stop their offensive in Gaza until they had crushed Hamas as a military and political force and had freed the hostages seized on Oct. 7. About 1,200 people were killed in the attack and 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages. Of the 101 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least a third are believed to be dead.

以色列领导人长期以来一直表示，在粉碎哈马斯这支军事和政治力量，并解救10月7日被劫持的人质之前，他们不会停止对加沙的进攻。大约1200人在那场袭击中丧生，250人被带到加沙作为人质。在留在加沙的101名人质中，至少有三分之一据信已经死亡。

Hamas’s assault reshaped the Middle East, setting off a devastating Israeli counterattack in Gaza that has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, turned much of the territory into ruins, and left hundreds of thousands of Gazans facing hunger and deprivation.

哈马斯的袭击重塑了中东，引发了以色列对加沙的毁灭性反击，造成4.2万多名巴勒斯坦人死亡，大片领土变成废墟，数十万加沙人面临饥饿和物资匮乏。

周四，支持在加沙被扣以色列人质家属的示威者在特拉维夫国防部外集会。

The Oct. 7 attack also led to fighting between Israel and other groups that, like Hamas, are backed by the Iranian government, and between Israel and Iran itself. They include Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

10月7日的袭击还引发了以色列与哈马斯等其他得到伊朗政府支持的组织之间的冲突，以及以色列与伊朗之间的冲突。这些组织包括黎巴嫩的真主党和也门的胡塞武装。

Hezbollah started firing rocket barrages from Lebanon into Israel a day after the Oct. 7 attack, prompting a year of cross-border fire. Last month, Israeli forces began a heavy bombing and ground campaign in Lebanon in an attempt to stop the attacks and dismantle Hezbollah. Israel has killed many of its top commanders, in addition to Mr. Nasrallah. Thousands in Lebanon have been killed in the ongoing assault, and about a million displaced.

在10月7日的袭击发生一天后，真主党开始从黎巴嫩向以色列发射火箭弹，引发了长达一年的跨境交火。上个月，以色列军队开始对黎巴嫩进行猛烈轰炸和地面攻势，试图阻止袭击并瓦解真主党。除了纳斯鲁拉之外，以色列还杀死了多名哈马斯高级指挥官。在黎巴嫩，数以千计的人在持续不断的袭击中丧生，大约100万人流离失所。

In Gaza, the soldiers who unexpectedly encountered Mr. Sinwar on Wednesday were part of a unit training to be squad commanders. After the firefight killed Mr. Sinwar and two other fighters, the Israelis found the area littered with explosives and approached the bodies cautiously. They found money and weapons, according to one Israeli official.

在加沙，周三意外遇到辛瓦尔的士兵是一支正在接受班长训练的部队的成员。辛瓦尔及另外两名战士在交火中丧生后，以色列人发现该地区到处都是爆炸物，于是小心翼翼地接近了尸体。据一名以色列官员称，他们发现了钱和武器。

Photographs obtained by The New York Times, some of which later circulated online, show the body of a man with facial features strongly resembling Mr. Sinwar’s. The body had severe wounds, including to the head and leg.

《纽约时报》获得的照片（其中一些后来在网上流传）显示，一名男子的面部特征与辛瓦尔非常相似。尸体上有严重的伤口，包括头部和腿部。

Mr. Sinwar died after Israeli soldiers and intelligence agents had spent months trying to locate him, finding clues but never managing to trap him, an Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters. Mr. Sinwar’s DNA had been found at one point in a tunnel a few hundred meters from where the bodies of six Israeli hostages were found six weeks ago, Admiral Hagari said. Israel collected DNA information from Mr. Sinwar during his decades-long incarceration inside Israeli jails.

以色列军方发言人、海军少将丹尼尔·哈加里告诉记者，以色列士兵和情报人员花了几个月的时间试图找到辛瓦尔，发现了一些线索，但始终未能将他抓获。哈加里说，辛瓦尔的DNA曾在距离六周前发现六名以色列人质尸体的地道几百米处被发现过。辛瓦尔曾在以色列监狱被关押数十年，以色列在此期间收集了他的DNA信息。

The news that Mr. Sinwar had been killed led to celebrations in Israel, as people gathered on rooftops and streets to cheer and wave Israeli flags, and drivers honked their horns.

辛瓦尔被杀的消息在以色列引发了庆祝活动，人们聚集在屋顶和街道上欢呼，挥舞以色列国旗，司机们按响喇叭。

For some of the hostages’ families, it was a moment of both satisfaction and trepidation. Many worried that their relatives might now be in greater danger.

对于一些人质的家属来说，这是一个既有补偿感又令人恐惧的时刻。许多人担心亲人现在可能处于更大的危险之中。

Einav Zangauker, whose son, Matan Zangauker, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, made a direct plea to Mr. Netanyahu in a video on social media: “Don’t bury the hostages.”

埃纳夫·赞高克的儿子马坦·赞高克在尼尔奥兹基布兹被绑架，他在社交媒体上的一段视频中直接请求内塔尼亚胡：“不要埋葬人质。”

“You have your victory image,” she said. “Now bring a deal.”

“你有了胜利的形象，”她说。“现在去达成交易吧。”

Orna and Ronen Neutra, the parents of Omer Neutra, a hostage who grew up on Long Island, in New York, and later joined the Israeli military, urged that “all attention” should turn to securing the release of the captives.

奥马尔·纽特拉是人质之一，他在纽约长岛长大，后来加入以色列军队。他们的父母奥纳和罗南·纽特拉敦促，“所有注意力”都应该转向确保人质获释。

As word of Mr. Sinwar’s death traveled through Gaza, many were stunned. At a makeshift cafe on the side of a road in Khan Younis, where Mr. Sinwar was born in 1962, people stopped to watch the news on television.

当辛瓦尔死亡的消息传遍加沙时，许多人感到震惊。在汗尤尼斯——辛瓦尔于1962年出生在那里——人们在路边的一家临时咖啡馆里驻足观看电视上的新闻。

Another resident of the southern city, Rayan Raef Hamdan, 20, said she would wait until Hamas confirmed the news and was hoping it was false, like previous reports of his demise.

这座南部城市的居民、20岁的拉扬·拉伊夫·哈姆丹说，她会等到哈马斯证实这一消息，并希望这是假的，就像之前有关他死亡的报道一样。

“Since the beginning of the war, we have heard many of these rumors,” she said, adding: “We hope that God will prolong his life and save him from death.”

“自从战争开始以来，我们听到了很多这样的谣言，”她说，“我们希望上帝能延长他的生命，使他免于死亡。”

周四，在加沙地带南部的汗尤尼斯，被摧毁的建筑物。

Other Gazans welcomed Mr. Sinwar’s death, blaming him for the hunger, unemployment and homelessness the conflict had caused.

也有加沙人对辛瓦尔的死表示欢迎，指责他要为冲突造成的饥饿、失业和无家可归负责。

“He humiliated us, started the war, scattered us and made us displaced, without water, food or money,” said a 22-year-old named Mohammed, who has been repeatedly displaced and asked that his last name not be used for fear of reprisals from Hamas.

22岁的穆罕默德说，“他羞辱了我们，发动了战争，驱散了我们，让我们流离失所，没有水，没有食物，也没有钱。”他曾多次流离失所，由于担心遭到哈马斯的报复，他要求不要透露自己的姓氏。

“He is the one who made Israel do this,” Mohammed said, calling Mr. Sinwar’s death “the best day of my life.”

“是他让以色列这么做的，”穆罕默德说，并称辛瓦尔之死是“我一生中最美好的一天”。

Rezeq el-Sabti, a 44-year-old father who was sheltering with his family in a tent in central Gaza, said he hoped that Mr. Netanyahu would now declare victory.

现年44岁的雷泽克·萨巴蒂是一位父亲，他和家人躲在加沙中部的一个帐篷里。他说，他希望内塔尼亚胡现在能宣布胜利。

“Netanyahu will say to his people that ‘We killed Sinwar, who waged war on us,’” Mr. el-Sabti said, “and this gives us hope that the war will end.”

“内塔尼亚胡会对他的人民说，‘我们杀死了向我们发动战争的辛瓦尔，’”萨巴蒂说，“这给了我们结束战争的希望。”

Still others said little would change with Mr. Sinwar’s death. “Many preceded him,” said Rehab Ibrahim Odeh, 64. “And he is no better than those who have passed away before.”

也有一些人说，辛瓦尔的死不会改变什么。“在他之前有很多人，”64岁的哈伯·易卜拉欣·奥德说。“他也不比以前死去的人好。”

Iranian state news media portrayed Mr. Sinwar’s death as “martyrdom” and praised him for dying while fighting Israel on the battlefield in Gaza.

伊朗官方新闻媒体将辛瓦尔的死描述为“殉难”，并赞扬他在加沙战场上与以色列作战时牺牲。

American officials immediately seized on Mr. Sinwar’s death to try to renew stalled negotiations aimed at achieving a truce in Gaza that would free the hostages there and allow more aid into the enclave.

美国官员立即抓住辛瓦尔之死的机会，试图重启陷入僵局的谈判。谈判旨在实现加沙停火，释放那里的人质，并允许更多援助进入这片飞地。

President Biden told reporters in Berlin that he had congratulated Mr. Netanyahu and would send the secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, to Israel in the next four or five days. “Now is the time to move on,” Mr. Biden said, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

拜登总统在柏林告诉记者，他向内塔尼亚胡表示了祝贺，并将在未来四五天内派国务卿布林肯前往以色列。“现在是时候继续前进了，”拜登说。他呼吁在加沙停火。

“It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home,” he said.

他说：“是时候结束这场战争，把人质带回家了。”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he had spoken to Mr. Biden and had “agreed that there is an opportunity to advance a deal to free the hostages and they will work together to achieve that goal.”

内塔尼亚胡的办公室在声明中表示，他已与拜登进行了交谈，并“同意有机会推进一项释放人质的协议，他们将共同努力实现这一目标”。

周四，约旦河西岸城市伯利恒一家理发店电视上的辛瓦尔画面。