Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the 7 October 2023 attack that triggered the Gaza war, was killed by Israeli forces in the Palestinian enclave, said Israel on Thursday.
US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that Sinwar’s death marked a moment of relief for Israelis and that he would speak soon with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about ending the war.
Russia has warned Israel to not even consider striking Iranian nuclear facilities, state news agency Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday.
Israeli troops kill Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the 7 October 2023 attack that triggered the Gaza war, was killed by Israeli forces in the Palestinian enclave, said Israel on Thursday.
His killing marks a huge success for Israel and a pivotal event in the year-long conflict. There are several possible scenarios for what happens next but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war would go on.
The Israeli military said it had killed Sinwar in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
“After completing the process of identifying the body, it can be confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was eliminated,” it said.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas, but sources in the militant group said that indications from Gaza suggested Sinwar had been killed in an Israeli operation.
In Israel, families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza said they hoped that a ceasefire could now be reached that would bring home the captives.
In Gaza, pounded relentlessly by Israeli forces for a year, residents said they believed the war would continue but they still clung to their hope of self-determination.
Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem just after the death was confirmed, said Sinwar’s death offered the chance of peace in the Middle East but warned that the war in Gaza was not over and Israel would continue until its hostages were returned.
“Today we have settled the score. Today evil has been dealt a blow but our task has still not been completed,” Netanyahu said in a recorded video statement. “To the dear hostage families, I say: this is an important moment in the war. We will continue full force until all your loved ones, our loved ones, are home.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said: “This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel.”
Sinwar, who was named as 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.
His death could dial up hostilities in the Middle East where the prospect of an even wider conflict has grown. Israel has launched a ground campaign in Lebanon over the past month and is now planning a response to a missile attack carried out by Iran on 1 October.
But the demise of the man who planned the attack last year in which fighters killed 1,200 people in Israel and captured more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, could also help push forward stalled efforts to end the war in which Israel has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel’s Army Radio said the killing had occurred during a ground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip during which Israeli troops killed three militants and took their bodies.
A ruthless enforcer once tasked with punishing Palestinians suspected of informing for Israel, Sinwar, who was born in 1962, made his name as a prison leader.
He emerged as a street hero in Gaza from a 22-year Israeli jail sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians. He then quickly rose to the top of the Hamas ranks. He was dedicated to eradicating Israel.
Israel has killed several commanders of Hamas in Gaza as well as senior figures of Hezbollah in Lebanon, dealing heavy blows to its arch-foes.
The killing also raises new questions about the fate of the hostages still in Hamas’ captivity. Sinwar was involved in negotiations that could have led to their release.
Families of Israeli hostages said that while the killing of Sinwar was a significant achievement, it would not be complete while hostages are still in Gaza.
In Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, a displaced Palestinian named Thabet Amour told Reuters that the Palestinian fight would continue.
“This is resistance that does not disappear when men disappear. The assassination of Sinwar will not lead to the end of the resistance or to a compromise or surrender and raising the white flag.”
Biden to speak soon with Netanyahu on ending war, returning hostages
US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that Sinwar’s death marked a moment of relief for Israelis while providing the opportunity for a “day after” in Gaza without the militant group in power.
“Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals. That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us,” Biden said in a statement.
“I will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people,” said Biden.
French President Emmanuel Macron said: “Yahya Sinwar was the main person responsible for the terrorist attacks and barbaric acts of October 7th. Today, I think with emotion of the victims, including 48 of our compatriots, and their loved ones. France demands the release of all hostages still held by Hamas.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said: “Sinwar was a brutal murderer and terrorist, who wanted to destroy Israel and its people. Hamas must now release all hostages and lay down its weapons, the suffering of the people in Gaza must finally end.”
UK Defence Secretary John Healey said: “I, for one, will not mourn the death of a terror leader like Sinwar, someone who was responsible for the terror attack on October the 7th, and I’m conscious, like the UK Government is, that that triggered not just the darkest, deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Second World War, but it’s triggered since more than a year of conflict and an intolerable level of civilian Palestinian casualties as well.”
Families of Israeli hostages fear for captives after Hamas’ Sinwar killed
Families of Israeli hostages taken captive to Gaza by Hamas fear their loved ones are in greater danger after Israeli troops killed Sinwar.
“We have settled the score with the chief murderer Sinwar. But now, more than ever, the lives of Matan, my son, and the other hostages are in tangible danger,” said Einav Zangauker, whose 24-year-old son was abducted from their kibbutz home during Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack.
“There will not be a real closing of the circle, no total victory if we do not save their lives and bring them all back,” said Zangauker in a video after news of Sinwar’s death emerged on Thursday.
So far, 117 hostages have returned home alive, including four released at the start of the Gaza war, 105 mostly women, children and foreigners returned last November during a brief truce with Hamas, and eight rescued by the military.
Thirty-seven were brought back dead. That leaves 101 hostages still in Gaza by Israeli tallies, at least half of whom Israeli authorities believe are still alive
Russia warns Israel not to attack Iranian nuclear facilities
Russia has warned Israel to not even consider striking Iranian nuclear facilities, state news agency Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday.
After Iran’s missile attack on Israel on 1 October, there has been speculation that Israel could strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, as it has long threatened to do.
“We have repeatedly warned and continue to warn, to caution [Israel] against even hypothetically considering the possibility of a strike on [Iranian] nuclear facilities and nuclear infrastructure," Ryabkov was quoted by Tass as saying.
“This would be a catastrophic development and a complete negation of all existing principles in the area of ensuring nuclear safety.”
German warship serving Unifil downs drone off Lebanon
A German warship operating as part of the United Nations’ Unifil peacekeeping mission shot down a drone off the coast of Lebanon on Thursday, the German defence ministry told Reuters, as unease builds over the safety of the UN troops in the country.
Unifil positions have come under fire in Lebanon since Israel launched a ground operation against Hezbollah militants on 1 October, raising alarm among European governments participating in the mission.
“The corvette brought an unidentified unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) into the water in a controlled crash,” the spokesperson said, reporting no damage to the German vessel or its crew.
The corvette Ludwigshafen am Rhein was continuing its duties, he added.
Israel stops processing key commercial food imports to Gaza
Israel has stopped processing requests from traders to import food to Gaza, according to 12 people involved in the trade, choking off a track that for the past six months supplied more than half of the besieged Palestinian territory’s provisions.
Since 11 October, Gaza-based traders who were importing food from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have lost access to a system introduced in spring by Cogat, the Israeli government body that oversees aid and commercial shipments, and have received no reply to attempts to contact the agency, said the sources.
The shift has driven the flow of goods arriving in Gaza to its lowest level since the start of the war, a Reuters analysis of official Israeli data shows.
Cogat did not respond to Reuters’ questions about commercial food imports and aid to Gaza. The agency says it does all it can to ensure that enough aid enters the coastal enclave and that Israel does not prevent the entry of humanitarian aid. It rejects allegations Israel has blocked supplies.
Between 1 and 16 October, the overall flow of shipments to Gaza — including both aid and commercial goods — fell to a daily average of 29 trucks, according to Cogat statistics.
That compares with a daily average of 175 trucks between May and September, the data show. Commercial shipments — goods bought by local traders, trucked in after direct approval by Cogat, and then sold in marketplaces in Gaza — accounted for about 55% of the total during that period.
Two sources involved in food supply said the reason for halting commercial shipments was because Israel worried that the Hamas militant group was receiving revenues from the imports.
A Hamas spokesperson denied that the group had stolen food or used it for revenue and said it was trying to ensure the distribution of aid in Gaza.
The commercial system’s apparent closure came as Israel launched a new military operation against Hamas in northern Gaza, a parallel development that has obstructed humanitarian aid deliveries. The UN’s World Food Programme said in a statement on Sunday the operation cut off all aid deliveries through crossings in the north for at least two weeks this month.
A series of measures by Israeli government departments and the military were already reducing food deliveries to Gaza. In August, Israeli authorities introduced a new customs rule on one aid channel and began scaling down the separate track of commercial goods.
Plummeting volumes of aid into Gaza have prompted the US to threaten to withhold military support to Israel and fuelled alarm over the risk of famine in Gaza.
Getting enough food to Gaza’s 2.3 million people, almost all of whom have been displaced, has been one of the most fraught issues of the war.
In May, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, saying they suspected Israeli authorities had used “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.
Israeli authorities have denied this, saying they facilitate food deliveries despite challenging conditions. They have filed two official challenges to the ICC, contesting the legality of the prosecutor’s request and the court’s jurisdiction.
Following recent international criticism, Cogat said in statements this week that Israel had allowed scores of trucks of aid into Gaza, including dozens via crossings in the north. It did not provide full details or respond to Reuters’ requests for information for this story.
Before the war, some 500 trucks per day entered Gaza carrying a mix of aid and commercial imports, such as food, building materials and agricultural supplies.
“The situation is getting desperate,” said Ibrahim Baraka, a resident of southern Gaza. “We have some non-perishable aid but there’s virtually no fresh produce anymore. A kilo of onions is $15 in southern Gaza.”
His account was corroborated by five other residents, seven traders and five humanitarian workers.
At least 28 dead in strike on Gaza shelter
At least 28 Palestinians including children were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike on a shelter in the northern Gaza Strip, a Gaza health ministry official said, while Israel said the attack targeted tens of militants at the site.
Dozens were also injured in the strike, said the official, Medhat Abbas, adding: “There is no water to extinguish the fire. There is nothing. This is a massacre. Civilians and children are being killed, burned under fire.”
The Israeli military said the strike targeted militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, who operated from within the Abu Hussein School in Jabalia that had been serving as a shelter for displaced people.
It said dozens of militants were present inside the compound when the strike took place, and provided the names of at least 12 of them, which Reuters could not immediately verify.
Hamas said in a statement that allegations there were fighters at the school were “nothing but lies”, adding this was “a systematic policy of the enemy to justify its crime.”
Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said at least 11 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli strikes in Gaza City, while several others were killed in central and southern Gaza areas.
Residents of Jabalia, in northern Gaza, said Israeli forces blew up clusters of houses by firing from the air, from tanks and by placing bombs in buildings and then detonating them remotely.
The area has been a focus for the Israeli military for the past two weeks, which says it is trying to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping for more attacks.
Residents said Israeli forces had effectively isolated Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya in the far north of the enclave from Gaza City, blocking movement except for those families heeding evacuation orders and leaving the three towns.
“We have written our death notes, and we are not leaving Jabalia,” one resident told Reuters via a chat app.
“The occupation [Israel] is punishing us for not leaving our houses in the early days of the war, and we are not going now either. They are blowing up houses, and roads, and are starving us but we die once and we don’t lose our pride," the father of four said, refusing to give his name, fearing Israeli reprisal.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it seized many weapons in the area, some of which were stashed in a school, and that its forces had killed dozens of militants in airstrikes and combat at close quarters, as troops try to root out Hamas forces operating in the rubble.
Surge in Gaza violence increases famine risk, says monitor
The entire Gaza Strip remained at risk of famine and was experiencing emergency levels of hunger, with intense Israeli military operations adding to concerns and hampering humanitarian access, said a global monitor on Thursday.
About 1.84 million people across the besieged Palestinian enclave are living through high levels of acute food insecurity, including nearly 133,000 people experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic”, levels, according to an analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
That was down from some 343,000 people suffering catastrophic hunger as of the last update in June, but it was expected to return to that level in coming months, the IPC said.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk described the assessment as “beyond terrifying.”
“This crisis is principally the consequence of decisions made by the Israeli authorities. It is in their power to change the situation — urgently,” he said, adding that starvation of civilians as a method of warfare constituted a war crime.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was alarmed by the IPC analysis.
“Famine looms. This is intolerable. Crossing points must open immediately, bureaucratic impediments must be removed, and law and order restored so UN agencies can deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance,” he said in an X social media post.
An estimated 60,000 cases of acute malnutrition among young children were expected between September 2024 and August 2025, according to the IPC. The new analysis was conducted between 30 September and 4 October. DM
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