Sinwar’s three bets:
1. believed its bargaining position was only improving with time
2. international pressure on Israel
3. growing domestic anger at Netanyahu

"We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar told other Hamas leaders, according to a June report in The Wall Street Journal. "The higher the civilian death toll in Gaza, the more pressure would be put on Israel," he said.

Shortly before his death in mid-October, Sinwar told Hamas’s leadership that "a long war against Israel was beneficial."
“The longer it lasts, the closer we get to liberation,” senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan recounted Sinwar saying.

Sinwar is now dead, but those making decisions in his place did not immediately seem willing to make any major concessions, either — at least not until recent developments knocked the pillars out from under Hamas’s position.