Hamas vowed on Friday it would not release the hostages it seized during its October 7 attack on Israel until the Gaza war ends, as it mourned the death of its leader, Yahya Sinwar.
“We mourn the great leader, the martyred brother, Yahya Sinwar, Abu Ibrahim,” Qatar-based Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said in a recorded video statement.
The hostages “will not return… unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops, there is a complete withdrawal from it, and our heroic prisoners are released from the occupation’s prisons,” he added.
Hamas’s confirmation of the death of Sinwar, the mastermind of the deadliest attack in Israeli history, came a day after Israel dealt a massive blow to the group with the announcement of his death.
Hamas sparked the year-long war in Gaza by staging the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
During the attack, militants took 251 people hostage back into Gaza. Ninety-seven remain there, including 34 who Israeli officials say are dead.
Chief of Hamas in Gaza at the time of the attack, Sinwar became the militant group’s overall leader after the killing in July of its political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Sinwar’s killing an “important landmark in the decline of the evil rule of Hamas”, adding that while it did not spell the end of the war, it was “the beginning of the end”.
In Gaza, there was little hope Sinwar’s killing would bring an end to the war.
“We always thought that when this moment arrived the war would end and our lives would return to normal,” Jemaa Abou Mendi, a 21-year-old Gaza resident, told AFP.
“But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is quite the opposite. The war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated.”
– Air strikes –
Israel conducted air strikes on Gaza on Friday, with several raids overnight and early morning pummelling the territory, according to an AFP journalist on the ground.
According to Gaza’s civil defence agency, rescuers recovered the bodies of three Palestinian children from the rubble of their home in the north of the territory after it was hit at dawn.
The Israeli military said it was pressing its operation in Jabalia, one of the focuses of the fighting in recent weeks, and where strikes on Thursday killed at least 14 people, according to two hospitals.
A UN-backed assessment has found some 345,000 Gazans face “catastrophic” levels of hunger this winter.
Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas and bring back the hostages seized by militants has killed 42,500 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.
With the civilian toll in Gaza mounting, Israel has faced criticism over its conduct of the war, including from the United States.
Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi vowed to keep fighting “until we capture all the terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre and bring all the hostages home”.
– ‘Opportunity’ –
Some Israelis hailed the news of Sinwar’s death as a sign of better things to come.
Attending a Tel Aviv rally demanding the hostages’ release, 60-year-old Sisil, who gave only her first name, said his killing presented a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for “a hostage deal to end the war”.
US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel’s top arms provider, said Sinwar’s death was a “moment of justice” and “an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas”.
Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government and international mediators to leverage “this major achievement to secure hostages’ return”.
According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, Biden called to congratulate him on Sinwar’s killing, with the two leaders vowing to seize “an opportunity to promote the release of the hostages”.
– Successor? –
With Hamas already weakened more than a year into the Gaza war, Sinwar’s death deals an immense blow to the organisation, but whether it will trigger a shift in its own strategy is unclear.
It is also unclear whether his successor will be named in Qatar, where Hamas’s political leadership has long been based, or in Gaza, the focus of the fighting.
The Israeli military said Sinwar was killed in a firefight in southern Gaza’s Rafah, near the Egyptian border, while being tracked by a drone.
It released drone footage of what it said was Sinwar’s final moments, with the video showing a wounded militant throwing an object at the drone.
Israel is also fighting a war in Lebanon, where Hamas ally Hezbollah opened a front by launching cross-border strikes that forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes.
Hezbollah said Thursday it was launching a new phase in its war against Israel, and that it had used precision-guided missiles against troops for the first time.
The war since late September has left at least 1,418 people dead in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
The Israeli military has announced the deaths of 19 soldiers in combat in southern Lebanon.
The war has also drawn in other Iran-aligned armed groups, including in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
Iran on October 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel, for which Israel has vowed to retaliate.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday said Sinwar will remain an inspiration for militants fighting Israel across the region.
“His fate — beautifully pictured in his last image — is not a deterrent but a source of inspiration for resistance fighters across the region, Palestinian and non-Palestinian,” Araghchi said on X.
Hezbollah and Yemen’s Huthi rebels both mourned the death of Sinwar, vowing continued support for their Palestinian ally Hamas.
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