The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli strike complicates peace negotiations and could prolong the conflict, experts warn. While Israel sees it as a symbolic victory, securing hostages and ending hostilities become more challenging.
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza will make negotiations with Israel 'extremely difficult' and could prolong a drawn out war in the region, experts warn.
With Hamas figurehead in Gaza dead, Israel will have more room to focus on pressing matters, securing the northern border and delivering a response to Iran for its October 1 attack. As head of the organisation in Gaza, he was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, which saw Hamas and aligned groups storm into southern Israel, killing some 1,170 people and taking 251 hostage.
Born in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis in 1962, Sinwar was arrested several times by Israel as a young adult for anti-occupation activism.Sinwar joined Hamas in 1987 but was arrested the following year and hit with four life sentences. Much of his time in prison was spent in solitary confinement. Sinwar was soon accepted as a leader and forged alliances with Hamas' military wing before earning a reputation for brutality against suspected collaborators.
Israel has maintained since the start of the war that its objectives were to oust Hamas' leadership and return those held in captivity since last October. 'The key issue will be for the mediators – for Egypt, for Qatar – to actually speak to someone. Haniyeh was a very important interlocutor. Sinwar was the interlocutor afterwards. He's now been killed… So we have a bit of a leadership vacuum.
Some 60,000 people remain displaced after more than a year of conflict with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Netanyahu can now 'build the narrative' that 'we've decimated Hamas' and focus on 'more pressing issues' like defending the northern border said Dr Krieg 'Israel is rising up and is now doing things that, frankly, the United States and the West and Europe should have done a long time ago.
Urban Coningham, Research Fellow and Course Lead at the Royal United Services Institute , told MailOnline that while ceasefire negotiations appear 'off the table' at present, Sinwar's death could ultimately catalyse the US into pressuring Israel into agreeing a ceasefire deal. 'This comes with the caveat that as US elections less than a month away, it is uncertain how willing Biden will be to place this sort of pressure on Netanyahu.'
Israel was reportedly considering the exiled former Palestinian security chief Mohammad Dahlan for a role in the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip this week. 'The regional balance of power and ongoing tensions in the Middle East are unlikely to be resolved in the near term. Ali Assaf , 20, reportedly the only survivor from his family killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, is comforted by two young men as mourns near the bodies of his relatives in front of the al-Maamadani on October 12Rockets being fired from the region toward Israel on October 11 as hostilities continue with Hezbollah in LebanonAmong the frontrunners to replace Sinwar could be ex-chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, Khaled Meshaal.
'With Sinwar potentially killed within two months of taking Haniyeh's old role as Political Chief, it is unclear who would now replace him. Dismantling Hamas may break its capacity to launch attacks into Israel, but the more enduring challenge will be finding a viable replacement. A yellow ribbon along with the number 365, signifying the number of days since the October 7, 2023 attacks is projected along with pictures of the victims of the attacks along the old city walls of Jerusalem late on October 6
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