Hamas leader, Israel’s ‘most wanted,’ is dead. What happens to war in Gaza?

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited a devastating war in the Gaza Strip, was killed by Israeli forces in southern Gaza, Israel said Thursday.

The dramatic announcement opened the prospect of a turning point in the one-year conflict that has expanded northward into Lebanon.

As of Thursday evening, Hamas had neither confirmed nor denied the killing. Hamas officials could not be reached for comment.

Shock swept across Gaza Thursday afternoon as news spread of the possible death of Mr. Sinwar, who plunged the besieged strip into a war that has killed more than 40,000 people, including thousands of children, and displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.2 million residents.

Israel had labeled Mr. Sinwar a “dead man walking” after the Oct. 7 attack that slaughtered 1,200 people in Israel and took 253 others hostage.

Mr. Sinwar’s posthumous legacy among Palestinians loomed large and sparked contention. Some saw in him a resistance fighter who fought to his last breath and brought the Palestinian cause back to the forefront of international attention; others regarded him as a bringer of destruction who failed to end the war he had started.

Graphic images allegedly taken by Israeli soldiers of a deceased man resembling Mr. Sinwar in a military vest, his face caked in cement dust, spread across Palestinian social media as Israeli media reported that officials were investigating.

Amid the rumors, some passersby in the market in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, were silent, unwilling to badmouth the dead. Others merely muttered, “Allah yarhamu” – “May God have mercy on him.”

Mr. Sinwar’s movement has faced growing unpopularity in Gaza in recent months due to its inability or refusal to secure a cease-fire with Israel.

In the latest opinion poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, conducted in September, 39% of Gazans surveyed said they were satisfied with Hamas, and only 29% said they were satisfied with Mr. Sinwar’s leadership. Nearly two-thirds, 65%, of Gazans surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with his selection as overall leader of Hamas in August.

Yet even critics on Thursday said they respected the fact that Mr. Sinwar was killed standing above ground in what many described as an act of “defiance,” rather than hiding in Hamas’ tunnel network, where analysts believe he spent much of the war.

“If the report of Yahya Sinwar’s assassination in Rafah is accurate, it would confirm he was leading the battle there, just as he led from Khan Yunis during the initial invasion,” says Baha Noor, a resident of Ramallah, in the West Bank.

An uncompromising approach

Mr. Sinwar, who spent 22 years in an Israeli prison before being released as part of a deal to secure the return of an Israeli soldier in 2011, was a Gaza-based hard-liner dedicated to Israel’s destruction who was at times at odds with the more moderate political branch of Hamas abroad.

As Mr. Sinwar rose through its ranks, becoming the local leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017, he imposed an uncompromising approach on the movement, sources say.

In the view of many officials and analysts, it was this stance, matched by a similarly uncompromising approach from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that contributed to the failure of months of cease-fire-for-hostages negotiations.

In a statement last night declaring “the beginning of the day after Hamas,” Mr. Netanyahu made an offer to Hamas fighters in Gaza. “Whoever lays down his weapon and returns our hostages – we will allow him to leave and live.”

Israel’s July assassination in Iran of Ismael Hamiyeh, Hamas’ lead negotiator, head of its politburo, and potential Palestinian presidential candidate, had left Mr. Sinwar in full control of Hamas.

It remains unclear if there are any senior Hamas leaders left alive in Gaza.

The movement’s politburo abroad, based mainly in Doha, Qatar, is expected to elect a successor in the coming weeks, according to a source close to the movement.

But Mr. Sinwar’s killing deepened a fear among Gazans, who openly wondered how a cease-fire can be agreed with Israel if there are no senior Hamas leaders left to reach such an agreement. Others in Gaza took to the streets in Khan Yunis to celebrate in small crowds, believing Israel’s killing of the Hamas leader would usher in an immediate end to the war.

“Things will certainly shift, but it depends on the future leadership of Hamas and who the group appoints next,” says Mansour Alfaris, a Gaza civil servant. “The strategy of decapitation won’t dismantle the organization or extinguish the notion of resistance.”

Israeli hostage families left waiting

The news out of Gaza stoked strong emotions in Israel, where the families of hostages saw the Hamas leader’s death as a military accomplishment, but not one that brought their loved ones home.

There was a charged, almost upbeat vibe in Israeli TV news studios that broke into regular programming to share the dramatic news.

“It could be a turning point, both for negotiating a hostage deal and even the eventual end of the organization’s dominance in Gaza,” Shalom Ben-Hanan, a former official in the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, said on Israel’s Channel 12.

The news reverberated also in the United States, where, according to Israeli reports, President Joe Biden was kept abreast of what Israeli leaders had learned.

“This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” he said after Mr. Sinwar’s death was confirmed, adding that “much work remains before us.”

“This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza,” Vice President Kamala Harris said outside a campaign event in Wisconsin. “And it must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to freedom, security, dignity, and self-determination. It is time for the day-after to begin without Hamas in power.”

The Tel Aviv-based Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement on Thursday that it “welcomes the elimination of Yahya Sinwar, one of the major obstacles to a [cease-fire] deal.”

But it added, “The hostages’ families express serious concern about the fate of 101 hostages still held in Hamas captivity in Gaza and demand that the military accomplishment be leveraged to immediately reach a deal.

“We call on the Israeli government, world leaders, and mediating countries to leverage the military achievement into a diplomatic one,” the movement said.

Einav Zangauker, whose son is held by Hamas, called on Mr. Netanyahu to seal a deal for the hostages’ return.

“We have settled the score with the arch-murderer Sinwar,” Ms. Zangauker said in a statement. “Especially today, when the country is breathing a sigh of relief, it is important to remember that the public wants the hostages home and their return is one of the objectives of the war. There will be no real closure, no total victory if we don’t save their lives and bring them all back.”

A correspondent contributed to this report from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip.