Israel and Hamas show opposition to ending the Gaza war after Sinwar’s death

Hamas confirmed Friday that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and reiterated its position that the hostages the militant group took from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. .

The group’s position rejected a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier that his country’s army will continue fighting until the hostages are released and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.

The conflicting positions indicate continued deep opposition on both sides to ending the war, even as US President Joe Biden and other world leaders insist that Mr Sinwar’s death is a turning point that should be used to resolve stalled negotiations on a ceasefire to restart the fire.

The standoff comes as Israel’s war with Lebanese Hezbollah, a Hamas ally backed by Iran, has intensified in recent weeks.

Hezbollah said Friday it plans to launch a new phase of the battle 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 to Lebanon earlier this month.

Former Hamas leader Sinwar died “until the last moment of his life in front of the occupying army,” said his Qatar-based deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, who represented Hamas during several rounds of ceasefire negotiations.

Hamas will not return any of the hostages, Mr. al-Hayya said, “until the end of the aggression against Gaza and the withdrawal from Gaza.”

Hamas praised Mr. Sinwar in a statement, calling him a hero for “not retreating, brandishing his weapon, and attacking and confronting the occupying army at the forefront of its ranks.”

The statement appeared to refer to a video the Israeli army distributed of its apparent final moments showing a man sitting on a chair in a badly damaged building, badly injured and covered in dust.

In the video, the man raises his hand and throws a stick at an approaching Israeli drone.

Mr. Sinwar was the chief architect of the Hamas attack on Israel last year, which killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. They make no distinction between fighters and civilians, but say more than half of the dead are women and children.

The war has devastated large parts of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.

The killing appeared to be a chance frontline encounter with Israeli forces on Wednesday and could change the dynamics of the Gaza war even as Israel continues its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other parts of the country.

Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel almost every day since the war between Israel and Hamas began, driving tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in the north of the country.

More than a million people in Lebanon have been displaced by Israeli aerial bombardments and ground offensive.

Iran, which also backs Hamas, praised Mr. Sinwar on Friday as a martyr who can inspire others to challenge Israel.

“We, and countless others around the world, salute his selfless struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“Martyrs live forever, and the cause for Palestine’s liberation from occupation is more alive than ever.”

Israel has pledged to politically destroy Hamas in Gaza, and killing Mr Sinwar was a top military priority.

But Netanyahu said Thursday evening in a speech announcing the killing that “our war is not over yet.”

Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted Gazans expressed hope that Mr. Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sinwar’s death “provides an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a lasting ceasefire” and suggested the US could play a role in helping stabilize Gaza in the future .

“Hopefully, countries in the region will do their part,” Austin said at a NATO meeting in Brussels.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said during a meeting with her counterpart in Lebanon that European countries are working towards a “sustainable ceasefire” in both that country and Gaza. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said “a diplomatic solution must overcome the fighting.”

But a day after Mr Biden described Mr Sinwar’s death as an “opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power”, he acknowledged the difficulty of securing a ceasefire there, saying he that it might be easier to negotiate an end to the fighting in Gaza. Lebanon.

“It will be more difficult in Gaza,” Biden told reporters on Friday after meeting with European leaders in Berlin.

A White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, said it was “too early” to assess who Hamas “might anoint as Sinwar’s successor and what that person might be willing to pursue.”

In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded that the Israeli government use Mr. Sinwar’s killing as a way to resume negotiations to bring their loved ones home.

There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.

“We are at a turning point where the goals for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages,” Ronen Neutra, father of 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 planned to convene a special meeting on Friday to discuss the hostage negotiations, an Israeli official with knowledge of the negotiations said.

The Israeli military said Friday it has allowed 30 trucks carrying food, water, medical and other supplies into northern Gaza as the country faces pressure from the US to boost aid.

There was no immediate confirmation from the UN that aid was arriving and being distributed in the north.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah issued a statement on Friday saying its fighters had deployed 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 multi-layered air defense system and struck a dining hall at a military training camp deep in Israel last Sunday, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens.

The group announced earlier this week that it fired a new type of missile, called Qader 2, at the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The Israeli army said on Friday it would activate an additional reserve brigade in the north of its country to support troops in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s 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 stepped up border security since the Hamas attack in October 2023.