Israel has vowed to “eliminate” new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, whose appointment has further fuelled regional tensions as the Gaza war entered its 11th month on Wednesday.
Sinwar’s nomination to lead the Palestinian group comes as Israel prepares for possible Iranian retaliation over the killing of his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week.
Speaking at a military base on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “determined” to defend itself.
“We are prepared both defensively and offensively,” he told the new recruits.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said late Tuesday that Sinwar’s promotion was “another strong reason to immediately eliminate him and wipe this hateful organization off the face of the earth.”
Sinwar – the leader of Hamas in Gaza since 2017 – has not been seen since the October 7 attack, the deadliest assault in Israeli history.
A senior Hamas official told AFP that Sinwar’s selection sent a message that the group was “continuing its path of resistance”.
Hamas’ Lebanese ally Hezbollah congratulated Sinwar and said the appointment confirmed “that the enemy … has failed to achieve its objectives by assassinating Hamas leaders and officials.”
Analysts believe Sinwar has been more reluctant to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and is closer to Tehran than Haniyeh, who lives in Qatar.
According to Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, “If a ceasefire agreement seemed impossible after Haniyeh’s death, it is even less likely under Sinwar’s rule.”
“The group will place greater emphasis on its radical extremist tactics of recent years,” he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters it was up to Sinwar to help achieve a ceasefire, saying he “has been and will continue to be the primary arbiter”.
Citizens in both Israel and Gaza expressed discomfort with Sinwar’s appointment.
“He is a fighter. How will the talks happen?” displaced Gaza resident Mohammed al-Sharif told AFP.
In Tel Aviv, Hanan, a logistics company manager who did not want to give his second name, said Sinwar’s appointment meant that Hamas “didn’t consider it worthwhile to look for someone less militant, less murderous-minded”.
Hezbollah vows to respond
Iran-backed Hezbollah has also vowed to avenge the killing of Haniyeh and its military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli attack hours earlier in Beirut.
In a televised address to mark a week since Shukr’s death, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday that his group would retaliate either alone or in the context of a unified response by all Iran-backed groups in the region.
The United States, which has sent additional warships and jets to the region, has urged both Iran and Israel to avoid escalating tensions.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt.
“Nobody should escalate this conflict. We’re engaged in intense diplomacy with allies and partners, and we’re delivering that message directly to Iran. We’ve delivered that message directly to Israel,” Blinken told reporters.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron by telephone that the West should “immediately stop selling arms and support to Israel” if it wanted to prevent war, his office said.
The Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation met on Wednesday to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
Gambia’s Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara, whose country currently chairs the organisation, said Haniyeh’s “heinous” killing “risked sparking a wider conflict that could involve the whole region.”
Israel has not commented on Haniya’s killing but confirmed it had carried out the attack on Friday.
It blamed a Hezbollah commander for a rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children.
Flights cancelled
Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire with Israeli troops almost daily during the Gaza War.
The group said on Tuesday that six of its fighters were killed in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon and that it retaliated by firing “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at a military base in the Golan Heights.
Several airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or limited them to daytime hours.
The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which was triggered by the Palestinian group’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, has already involved Iran-backed militants in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
The Hamas attacks killed 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian Hamas militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 whom the Israeli military says are dead.
At least 39,677 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, though the ministry did not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
According to the ministry data, the death toll also includes two dozen deaths in the last 24 hours.
Israel said its air force had “strike dozens of terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip” over the past day.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
