Following the death of the Hamas leader, Netanyahu has called for more war, dashed peace dreams

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the killing of Hamas boss Yahya Sinwar would not stop the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. This dashed hopes that the killing would help end more than a year of worsening fighting in the Middle East.

Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon, promised to step up its fight against Israel, and Iran, which supports Hezbollah, said that the death of Sinwar, a Palestinian friend, would boost “the spirit of resistance.”

Israeli forces killed Sinwar during an operation in the Palestinian enclave on Wednesday. He was one of the main people behind the attack on October 7, 2023, that started the Gaza war.

Netanyahu called Sinwar’s death an important event late Thursday night, but he promised to keep up the war, which has recently grown from fighting Hamas in Gaza to invading southern Lebanon and bombing big parts of the country.

“The war, my dear ones, is not yet over,” Netanyahu told the Israeli people, adding that fighting would go on until Hamas frees the prisoners they are holding.

Adding, “We have a great chance to stop the axis of evil and make a different future,” he was talking about Iran and its militant allies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

Western leaders, such as U.S. President Joe Biden, said that Sinwar’s death gave the violence a chance to end, which was different from what Netanyahu said.

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Matthew Miller, said that the country wants to start peace talks and get the hostages freed. He also said that Sinwar had been unwilling to negotiate.

“It’s clear that that obstacle is no longer there.” I can’t say for sure that whoever takes over for Sinwar will agree to a truce, but that gets rid of the main problem that had been standing in the way for months, he said.

Reuters talked to a top diplomat in Lebanon who said that people’s hopes that Sinwar’s death would end the war seemed to be misplaced.

“All along, we had hoped that getting rid of Sinwar would be the turning point that would end the wars and make everyone ready to put down their weapons.” “It looks like we were wrong again,” the official said.

The United States, which supports Israel the most, has been trying for months to bring about peace between Hamas and Hezbollah but has been unsuccessful. Instead, Israel has continued its fights, and its main enemy, Iran, has looked like it lacks the military power to match Israel’s, which includes U.S. weapons.

The conflict led to the first direct clashes between Iran and Israel, with missile attacks on Israel in April and October. Netanyahu promised to do something about the attack in October, but it didn’t do much damage. The US has told Israel to limit its attacks and not go after Iranian weapons or energy facilities.

KILLED AND FOLLOWED

Sinwar, Hamas’ overall leader following the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, was believed to have been hiding in the warren of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza over the past two decades.

Israeli officials say they didn’t know they had caught their number one enemy when they killed him in a gun fight on Wednesday.

They put out a video from a drone that they said showed Sinwar sitting on a couch in a destroyed building while covered in dust. The video showed that the drone followed him as he lay dying. The film showed him throwing a stick at the drone while it hovered nearby. He looked like he was desperate.

Although Hamas hasn’t said anything, people inside the group say that the signs they’ve seen point to Sinwar’s death.

Israeli officials say he planned the attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people. Israel responded by invading Gaza, so far killing more than 42,000 people, according to Palestinian officials.

Hezbollah, which began firing rockets in Israel in support of its Hamas ally on Oct. 8, is the target of Israel’s intensifying assault on Lebanon, which has killed more than 2,000 people and displaced 1.2 million.

Israel has now killed several of Hamas’ top leaders and in a matter of weeks decapitated the Hezbollah leadership, mainly through air strikes.
The killings have dealt a blow to what anti-Israeli forces call the Axis of Resistance: a group of proxy militant groups that Iran has spent decades supporting across the region.

Iran showed no sign Sinwar’s killing would shift its support. “The spirit of resistance will be strengthened,” its mission to the United Nations said.

Hezbollah was also defiant, announcing “the transition to a new and escalating phase in the confrontation with Israel”.

The Israeli military said on Friday it had also killed Muhammad Hassin Ramal, Hezbollah’s commander of the Tayibe area in southern Lebanon.
Families of Israeli hostages said that while the killing of Sinwar was an achievement, it would not be complete while captives are still in Gaza.

Avi Marciano, father of Noa Marciano, who was killed in captivity by Hamas, told Israeli broadcaster KAN that “the monster, the one who took her from me, who had the blood of all our daughters on his hands, finally met the gates of hell.”