Israel vowed to kill Hamas’s new political leader, Yahya Sinwar, after his predecessor was assassinated in a suspected Israeli operation last month.
Hamas named Sinwar, the mastermind behind the terrorist group’s October 7 massacre of Israeli citizens and one of Israel’s top targets, as its new political chief on Tuesday following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on July 31. Haniyeh was killed by a bomb that had been hidden by Israeli operatives weeks earlier in the apartment he was staying in while visiting allies in Iran, the New York Times reported.
Now, the Israel Defense Forces intend to go after the new terrorist leader in its mission to fully eliminate Hamas amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
“There is only one place for Yahya Sinwar, and it is beside Mohammed Deif and the rest of the October 7 terrorists,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari told Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya. “That is the only place we’re preparing and intending for him.”
The Israeli government has not yet claimed responsibility for the Tehran bombing that resulted in Haniyeh’s death, but the Israeli military did confirm last week that Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, died from its Gaza airstrike on July 13. Hamas has not confirmed Deif’s death.
Late last month, Israel also targeted Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a retaliatory airstrike following the Lebanese group’s attack on a small Druze-Arab village in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Hezbollah’s assault claimed the lives of at least twelve children and teenagers while they were playing soccer.
Though it was immediately unclear whether Shukr survived the airstrike, Israel confirmed hours later that he was indeed dead. Hezbollah corroborated Israel’s admission.
The naming of Sinwar was likely meant to provoke Israel, as the U.S. urges its ally to exercise restraint for fear of an all-out war breaking out in the Middle East. President Joe Biden continues to push Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a potential cease-fire deal. Biden’s latest diplomatic effort to calm tensions in the region came in the form of a Tuesday meeting with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Netanyahu said over the weekend that Israel has already been fighting a “multi-front war” with Iran and its terror proxies. Israeli troops have exchanged fire with Hezbollah along the Lebanese border and counteracted Yemen’s Houthi rebels, while proceeding in their Gaza offensive against Hamas.
Following Sinwar’s appointment, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Palestinian politician “has been and remains the primary decider” in securing a cease-fire deal in Gaza.
“I think this only underscores the fact that it’s really on him to decide whether to move forward with a cease-fire that manifestly will help so many Palestinians in desperate need, women, children, men who are caught in a crossfire,” Blinken said Tuesday.