JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas confirmed Friday that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and reiterated its stance that hostages the militant group took from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a day earlier his country’s military would keep fighting until the hostages are released and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming after a year of devastating war.
Taken together, the two sides’ statements immediately after Sinwar’s killing signal they haven’t softened their core positions to ending the conflict, even as President Joe Biden and some other Western leaders say this is a turning point that should be used to unlock stalled cease-fire negotiations.
Khalil al-Hayya, who was Sinwar’s Qatar-based deputy and represented Hamas during several rounds of cease-fire negotiations, said the former Hamas leader died “confronting the occupation army until the last moment of his life.” Hamas will not return any of the hostages, he said, “before the end of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal from Gaza.”
Hamas heralded Sinwar in a statement, calling him a hero for “not retreating, brandishing his weapon, engaging and confronting the occupation army at the forefront of the ranks.”
The statement appeared to refer to a video the Israeli military circulated of Sinwar’s apparent last moments in which a man sits on a chair in severely damaged building, badly wounded and covered in dust. In the video, the man raises his hand and flings a stick at an approaching Israeli drone.
Sinwar’s killing, in what appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, could shift the dynamics of the Gaza war even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country. Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel nearly every day since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, which hailed Sinwar as a martyr who can inspire others in challenging Israel.
“We, and countless others around the world, salute his selfless struggle for liberation of the Palestinian people,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, wrote on the X social media platform. “Martyrs live forever, and the cause for liberation of Palestine from occupation is more alive than ever.”
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. Photos which were apparently taken by Israeli troops on the scene showed the body of a man who appeared to be him, half-buried in rubble and with a gaping wound in his head.
Netanyahu said in a speech announcing the killing Thursday night that “our war is not yet ended.”
But many, from the governments of Israel’s allies to exhausted residents of Gaza, expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday Sinwar’s death provides “an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a lasting cease-fire” and suggested the U.S. could have a role in helping to stabilize Gaza in the future. “Hopefully countries in the region will step up there,” Austin said at a NATO meeting in Brussels.
In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
“We are at an inflection point where the goals set for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages,” Ronen Neutra, father of the 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 was planning to convene a special meeting Friday to discuss hostage negotiations, an Israeli official with knowledge of the negotiations said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations issued a statement honoring Sinwar, emphasizing that he died on the battlefield and not in hiding, unlike their former enemy, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was hanged in 2006.
“When Muslims look up to martyr Sinwar standing on the battlefield — in combat attire and out in the open, not in a hideout, facing the enemy — the spirit of resistance will be strengthened,” the statement said.
More than 1 million people on both sides were killed during the brutal Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s that began when Hussein launched an invasion of Iran.
In Lebanon, the militant Hezbollah group, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza erupted in October last year, issued a statement early Friday saying its fighters have used new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones against Israel for the first time in recent days.
Hezbollah’s statement appeared to refer to an explosives-laden drone that evaded Israel’s multilayered air-defense system and slammed into a mess hall at a military training camp deep inside Israel last Sunday, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens.
The group also announced earlier this week that it fired a new type of missile called Qader 2 toward the suburbs of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military said it would activate an additional reserve brigade to the north of its country to support troops battling in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said its fighters were working according to “plans prepared in advance” to battle invading Israeli troops in several parts of south Lebanon. It also announced several missile and artillery attacks on Israeli forces operating in villages in southern Lebanon’s border area overnight and Friday morning.
In one case, the group said it fired a heavy missile barrage at Israeli soldiers who were trying to evacuate those wounded in an earlier strike. The group also said it had fired “large missile salvos” at a military barracks in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and at the Zvulun area north of Haifa.
Earlier this week, Hezbollah’s acting leader Naim Kassem warned the group will continue to target wider areas of Israel, which it has attacked with rockets nearly every day since Hamas’ deadly incursion last year.
As Israel fought militants in Lebanon and in Gaza, its military said Friday that its forces had 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 ramped up border security since the Hamas attack in October 2023.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed vast swathes of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
