Hamas confirmed Friday that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and reiterated its stance that hostages the militant group took from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.
The group’s staunch position pushed back against a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin a day earlier that his country’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.
The stands taken by the two sides signal, at least publicly, that they have not moved any closer to ending their conflict, even as President Joe Biden and other world leaders press the case that Sinwar’s killing is a turning point that should be used to unlock stalled cease-fire negotiations.
The war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said Friday it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike late last month, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier this month.
Sinwar, the former lead of Hamas, died “confronting the occupation army until the last moment of his life,” said his Qatar-based deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, who represented Hamas during several rounds of cease-fire negotiations. Hamas will not return any of the hostages, al-Hayya said, "before the end of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal from Gaza.”
Hamas heralded Sinwar in a statement, calling him a hero for “not retreating, brandishing his weapon, engaging and confronting the occupation army at the forefront of the ranks.”
The statement appeared to refer to a video the Israeli military circulated of Sinwar’s apparent last moments in which a man sits on a chair in severely damaged building, badly wounded and covered in dust. In the video, the man raises his hand and flings a stick at an approaching Israeli drone.
Sinwar was the chief architect of the Hamas raid on Israel last year that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children.
The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people and has left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.
Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and it could shift the dynamics of the Gaza war even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country.
Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel nearly every day since the Israel-Hamas war began, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in the country's north. More than 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by Israel's aerial bombardment and ground offensive.
Iran, which also supports Hamas, hailed Sinwar Friday as a martyr who can inspire others in challenging Israel.
“We, and countless others around the world, salute his selfless struggle for liberation of the Palestinian people,” Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, wrote on the X social media platform. “Martyrs live forever, and the cause for liberation of Palestine from occupation is more alive than ever.”
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a speech announcing the killing Thursday night that “our war is not yet ended.”
Still, the governments of Israel's allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday Sinwar’s death provides “an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a lasting cease-fire” and suggested the U.S. could have a role in helping to stabilize Gaza in the future. “Hopefully countries in the region will step up there,” Austin said at a NATO meeting in Brussels.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, meeting with her counterpart in Lebanon, said European countries are working for a “sustainable cease-fire” in both that country and in Gaza. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said “a diplomatic solution should overcome” the fighting.
Biden said negotiating a stop to the fighting between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah might be easier than forging a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. "It’s going to be harder in Gaza,” Biden told reporters Friday after meeting with European leaders in Berlin.
A White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, said it was “too soon” to assess who Hamas “might anoint as Sinwar’s successor and what that individual may be willing to pursue.”
In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
“We are at an inflection point where the goals set for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages,” Ronen Neutra, father of the Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra, said in a video statement. “Sinwar, who was described as a major obstacle to a deal, is no longer alive."
Netanyahu was planning to convene a special meeting Friday to discuss hostage negotiations, an Israeli official with knowledge of the negotiations said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.
Israel’s military said Friday it allowed 30 trucks of food, water, medical and other supplies into northern Gaza, as the country faces pressure from the U.S. to ramp up aid. There was no immediate confirmation from the U.N. that the aid arrived and was being distributed in the north.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah issued a statement early Friday saying its fighters have used new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones against Israel for the first time in recent days.
The statement appeared to refer to an explosives-laden drone that evaded Israel’s multilayered air-defense system and slammed into a mess hall at a military training camp deep inside Israel last Sunday, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens. The group announced earlier this week it fired a new type of missile called Qader 2 toward the suburbs of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military said Friday it would activate an additional reserve brigade to the north of its country to support troops battling in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese health ministry said six people were killed in the past 24 hours of fighting, bringing the death toll over the past year to 2,418, a quarter of whom were women and children.
On Friday Israel said its forces killed two militants who crossed into Israeli territory south of the Dead Sea from neighboring Jordan. Such infiltrations are relatively rare, especially as Israel has ramped up border security since the Hamas attack in October 2023.
Associated Press reporters Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Jon Gambrell in Jerusalem and Josh Boak in Berlin contributed to this story.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
42 Comments
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sakurasuki
So now he was found after Gaza and some village in Lebanon being flattened?
Not being found by sophisticated tech or intel, it just but just by chance and done by trainee soldier.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/chance-encounter-led-killing-israel-093057423.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/18/how-was-yahya-sinwar-killed-what-we-know-so-far
sakurasuki
October this year isn't to the first one, in April US even already communicate officially with Israel to let the UN aid can go to refugee in Gaza however after many billions of US tax payer being given to Israel, Israel just ignore it. Not sure if US can told Israel to go for cease fire.
So who the really world super power here?
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20241016-us-warns-israel-it-could-restrict-military-aid-without-dramatic-improvement-to-gaza-aid
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-gives-israel-30-days-improve-gazas-humanitarian-situation-or-risk-aid-reports-2024-10-15/
Tamarama
Israel aren't a superpower, but they are the US's rogue dog.
u_s__reamer
The land-hungry Zionists have bigger fish to fry than picking off Hamas leaders so peace will depend on America's taking away their arms. Meanwhile, with the decapitated and splintered state of the Hamas resistance forces and, given the ostensible unconcern of Netanyahu for the lives of the Israeli hostages, their fate now hangs in the balance like never before.
sakurasuki
@Tamarama
In that context, who really influence US leader and congressman?
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jamaal-bowman-aipac/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/22/aipac-pro-israel-lobby-group-us-elections
Wick's pencil
This is not a war, it's a genocide. Just like the holocaust was not a war.
sakurasuki
At least Putin not being influence by lobbyist group.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/putin-says-gaza-war-must-end-with-establishment-of-palestinian-state/3366661
https://english.aawsat.com/world/5072418-putin-palestinian-leader-abbas-invited-brics-summit-russia-next-week
Tamarama
There is an interesting BBC video that analyzes this killing: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c8djz4rn144o
You can see the extent of devastation in Gaza - the places is totalled, the Israelis have demolished it completely.
They also clearly don't know who the man sitting in the armchair is, but apparently and old man sitting in an armchair in a destroyed house in Gaza is enough to call in a strike - I guess any man in Gaza is a Hamas terrorist. I mean, they don't even bother to check who it was until a day or two later.
So whilst they got one of their big targets purely by chance here, what this better highlights is the extent to which they are just casually killing Palestinians holus bolus as they encounter them in Gaza.
Quite sickening, and the world just sits on its hands and watches.
Chabbawanga
How do they expect to reach peace deal with one third of Likud party members are openly attending an event called Resettling Gaza?
Tell me again how this hasnt been the plan all along. The whole state reduced to rubble, basically an uninhabitable dust bowl with no homes, schools, hospitals, or anything left.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/it-is-doable-10-likud-mks-to-attend-conference-calling-for-resettling-gaza/amp/
Wick's pencil
So I guess it would be ok to flatten Israel in order to eliminate Netanyahu.
Capuchin
Israeli spokesman David Mencer claiming the video footage of the young Palestinian man burning alive on a bed attached to an IV was completely staged by "Pallywood".
What vile human beings Israeli spokespeople are. The same lying mouthes that brought you "40 decapitated babies" and "babies in ovens".
https://youtu.be/UeY95qEr_rc?si=jnbLPmp6sx4YGE88
RichardPearce
Is Netanyahu ready to withdraw his forces from every inch of internationally recognized Palestinian soil?
Is Netanyahu ready to tell the Israeli population illegally residing in Palestine that they can either return to Israel or accept Palestinian government authority over them?
Is Netanyahu ready to let Israel's legal population he has forcibly kept in exile for the 'crime' of not being Jewish a way to return?
Then the ONLY person signaling they are not ready to let Netanyahu's war ON Palestine and Palestinians come to an end is NETANYAHU!
Everything else is pretence and alternative facts.
Chabbawanga
He also repeated false claims that a pregnant Israeli woman had her baby cut out of her.
GDBD
I was not a fan of Hamas or its leaders by any means. But it seems Hamas is fighting beyond bravery no matter how you look at it. This Sinwar guy fought until his last moment. Can you say the same thing for any Jewish leader anywhere in the world?
Can you say the same thing for any Jews at all. They would flee in a fraction of such an aggressiopn against them. Remember after October 7. Israelis were so much shaken, western countries had to send war ships to calm their anxiety.
Even in the west, I know some Jews that always keep a large portion of their wealth in diamond, golds. So they can grab and flee in case things go bad for them. Like as if they accept that they are up to no good and the large population would eventually find out everything evil they secretly plotted.
When this disaster ends, the world will remember brave Palestinians who stood against zionist evil unleashed on their land and thank them for saving the world.
owzer
This should be a sign to anyone who’s watching. Hamas simply wants to death no matter what. Israel is committed to finishing the job.
I applaud Israel’s dedication.
YeahRight
So basically Hamas is still the bad guy. They can end this immediately by making a complete unconditional surrender and release all the remaining hostages. But their hatred for everyone, including their own Palestinian people, whom they use as human shields, won't allow them to do the right thing. Israel can and will continue the fight to victory.
Capuchin
I think what infuriates me so much about these people is that they are trying to totally de-humanise Palestinians. The exact same process of dehumanisation that made anti-semitism rampant across europe and paved the way for the holocaust.
David Mencer, Tzipi Hotovely, Mark Regev, Elon Levey. Absolutely abhorrent the whole slimy lot of them.
Chabbawanga
They are a nasty bunch.
Chabbawanga
Said against a backdrop or ever expanding settler violence and annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank, and the planned settlement of the Gaza strip. Please, oh please, explain to me again how it is the Palestinian people who dont want peace.
indigo
new excuse to increase oil price and global inflation.
they are just media propaganda puppets.
WAR is a business for US and many other countries, no wonder the conflict will not end.....
YeahRight
The Palestinian people want peace. It is the Iran-backed, hatred-filled Hamas who do not want peace, but the complete extermination of not only Israel, but all Jews. Israel will prevail against such evil.
Chabbawanga
They have called for the destruction of the israeli zionist state, not the death of every jew.
WoodyLee
Why should Hamas talk peace when it's people are getting slaughtered and burned alive in the north of Gaza??
Chabbawanga
If Israel is sooo good, why is Israel expanding illegal settlements and an ever increasing rate through state-sponsored settler violence? Why are one third of Israels democratically elected government attending an event to promote the settlement of Gaza? ....
RichardPearce
What do you call people who think the Palestinian response to having been invaded and occupied by Israel for DECADES should be complete surrender and acceptance of occupation and the loss of sovereignty, but the Ukrainian response to having been invaded by Russia should be all out warfare until Russia completely withdraws AND pays reparations AND accepts the complete sovereignty of Ukraine?
And would the answer be acceptable by Japan Today's moderators?
YeahRight
Israel is the victim. Some people seem to be forgetting October 7th and the Holocaust. Israel has a right to exist. Hamas does not recognize that right. Hamas is the evil in this conflict. Iran is also to blame. As is the Biden-HARRIS administration that has allowed Iran to sell more oil and make more money to finance this evil oppression of Israel.
kohakuebisu
Israel said that the first Gaza hospital to be damaged was from a "stray Hamas rocket". Israeli indiscriminate bombing has since damaged 32 out of 36 hospitals. Each one is a war crime.
Mencer's previous job was in the UK Labour Party telling everyone who was far too eager to listen that Jeremy Corbyn, democratically elected leader of the same party, was antisemitic. As with most of Israel's claims, no proof was ever provided.
WoodyLee
""Israel is the victim. Some people seem to be forgetting October 7th and the Holocaust.""
Very funny & Obsolete,
Better start looking for a new RECORD, how about Gaza Genocide !?
WoodyLee
What Holocaust!?
Check out the rest of the world casualties,
The following countries have the highest estimated World War II casualties: the Soviet Union (20 to 27 million), China (15 to 20 million), Germany (6 to 7.4 million), Poland (5.9 to 6 million), Dutch East Indies/Indonesia (3 to 4 million), Japan (2.5 to 3.1 million), India (2.2 to 3 million), Yugoslavia (1 to 1.7
SOURCE;
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war-two-casualties-by-country
Desert Tortoise
An excerpt from a much longer interview with retired Ambassador Ryan Crocker:
Netanyahu has said the “balance of power” in the region has changed in Israel’s favor. What is your response to that assessment?
I would say that’s premature. Clearly Hezbollah fights on. Rockets are still flying across the border, as are drones. They’re decentralized. Clearly Hamas as well as Hezbollah is decentralized. They’re certainly ground down in terms of their capability of delivering anything like a meaningful response. But I foresee a very long insurgency by Hamas.
And Hezbollah?
It’s a very different dynamic in the north. In a sense Netanyahu has set the bar very high, in that he’s trying to stop the rocket fire in a definitive way so that 60,000 Israelis can go back home. Though all Hezbollah has to do is keep enough rockets crossing the border to make that difficult.
It’s really a fog of war situation in that it’s very difficult to see what Hezbollah’s strength is right now.
I’m old enough to take a very long view. I was in Lebanon in 1982 when the Israelis invaded. They called their operation “Peace for Galilee.” And 42 years later Lebanon is further from peace than it was in ‘82 when that invasion kicked off. That invasion and the subsequent Israeli occupation created Hezbollah. This invasion is not going to end it.
We’re still expecting the Israeli response to last week’s Iranian missile attack. Recent reports have indicated the Israelis may not hit Iran’s nuclear or oil sites, but just military or intelligence targets, which could be less escalatory. What’s your assessment?
Well assuming that analysis is correct that they are not going to strike Iran’s oil or nuclear facilities, that leaves them a lot of latitude of what they do strike, but wherever they strike it’s not going to meaningfully change any power equation. What I think it will do is push the debate inside Iran in the direction of nuclear weaponization sooner rather than later.
You think that’s going to happen no matter what?
I do. Again, they just have to look at the global stage. You’ve got the Libyan example of what can happen if you forgo nuclear capability. And the North Korean example of what can happen if you maintain it.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Did the Palestinians accept the UN partition plan? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine
There was no UN recognized Israel or Palestine at the time.
Chabbawanga
We remember very well, and there should be no double standards.
Would you accept a plan to give away half your house to a guy whose great great great grandfather apparently used to live there? No, didnt think so.
Fos
What is really clear to me is that this war could end the day the US administration stops giving/foraging weapons to the IDF, the State of Israel. But it does not despite all the great words of Anthony Blinken.
Despite alle the geopolitical uncertainty US financial markets are on all time high, which says a lot how Wall Street is gaining from this long spiral of death, violence and destruction, considering the top arms manufacturers in the world are all American.
And that says a lot about Japan main ally. Washington is now desperately trying to shift the media attention to the skirmishes of Philippines fishermen with China vessels to create some sort of international whitewash similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, which was based on false pretests, starting the Vietnam War.
Japan really need to be careful about his dangerous narrative and we will see a big shift at the next elections in Japan. Especially if the LDP does not change their warmongering attitude inherited by their previous administration.
New rice harvest price is 48% up from a year earlier, and this new government have just announced a tactical missiles order from the US Pentagon, just to wrap up the weekend and celebrate on a golf course with their US representatives from Rex Corporation in Tokyo.
Fos
WoodyLee
Israel just destroyed any chance for peace in both Gaza and Lebanon by eliminating the Negotiators.
Killing the chief of the tribe is Not smart Israel.
This is going to be along and hard battle between two religious phonetics who believe that God is on their side.
Anyone who thinks that this conflict will not spread and engulf most of the Middle East better start thinking again because it is, Israel can no longer end it even if it wants to, and so are Hamas and Hezbollah.
Too much Blood, Hate, and Anger will keep this fire smoldering for a long time
WoodyLee
News Outlets are reporting that Hamas Leader was like any of Hams fighters he killed while in action in the battle field in Rafah city. He was heavily armed and in uniform not as what Bibi has described him hiding in tunnels with the hostages. .
Desert Tortoise
A little bit more from the interview with Ryan Crocker
Are you concerned that the Israelis have become overconfident?
I worry that they’ve forgotten their own recent history. They hailed the operation “Peace for Galilee” as a great victory after the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] withdrawal from Beirut. And of course what they got was Hezbollah, a far more lethal enemy than the PLO ever dreamed of being. So the idea that a ground invasion and subsequent occupation is somehow going to make Galilee safer is delusional.
One difference is how sophisticated these recent Israeli decapitation strikes have been against both Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the pager/walkie-talkie attacks. Does that make any difference?
One thing I’ve learned over years, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the concept of the defeat of an adversary only has meaning in the mind of that adversary. If that adversary feels defeated, he is defeated. If he doesn’t, he’s not. Will these decapitations make the adversary feel defeated? I guess time will tell but I would bet against it.
Why is that?
I was in Lebanon for the creation of Hezbollah, for which we paid dearly and the Israelis even more dearly. And I was in Lebanon as U.S. ambassador when the Israelis decapitated Hezbollah for the first time with the assassination of Abbas Musawi [the secretary-general of Hezbollah killed in 1992 when Israeli helicopters fired missiles at his motorcade]. And I had to be evacuated because of credible intelligence that there was a plan to assassinate me in retaliation. Well, that decapitation didn’t exactly weaken Hezbollah.
Desert Tortoise
There is a video of him moments before he was killed. He was sitting in a chair in a bomb damaged apartment and threw a piece of wood at the drone that was taking video of him.
Desert Tortoise
??? I think you meant religious fanatics. Phonetics is about language :o
Toblerone
Israel is going to kill ALL its enemies this time. Whoa!
Toblerone
It is BIBLICAL.
itsonlyrocknroll
Israel government, it people are convinced beyond any external persuasion, reasonable doubt, this war is a pivotal decisive moment that will deicide Judaism future.
The solemn belief that Israel very survival depends on Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah must be convinced that Israel will use any and all means to make sure this fact is fully understood.
The political diplomatic options are all exhausted.
France Macron foolish ill judged, ego centric posturing jibber jabber could do more harm that produce positive outcomes.