Israelis, Palestinians brace for aftermath of Sinwar’s killing in Gaza

JERUSALEM - A day after learning of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, diplomats and governments on Friday pushed to take advantage of the unexpected killing as a chance to restart moribund talks for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages.

President Joe Biden said Thursday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would visit Israel within days in another attempt to push the process forward, while Vice President Kamala Harris said in a social media post that Sinwar’s death “gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting of security officials Friday, according to Israeli media reports, which said the discussions focused on efforts to prevent Hamas from harming the hostages to avenge Sinwar’s killing. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.

It remained far from clear who would represent Hamas if talks reconvene.

In Israel, jubilation turned to speculation Friday. Even as new details emerged of Sinwar’s violent last minutes, the country’s entrenched factions began debating what the surprise discovery of his body in the aftermath of a firefight would, and should, change about the war in Gaza.

The families of the hostages, along with a large part of Israel’s security establishment, renewed their push for a negotiated end to the fighting and the freeing of 101 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza - only a few dozen of whom are still believed to be alive.

Some moderates advocated for Netanyahu to go further, taking advantage of Sinwar’s death and Israel’s recent military momentum in Lebanon to strike an even bigger deal: a grand bargain that would settle the wars against Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north and cool tensions with Iran, the backer of both militant groups.

“This is the right time to launch a diplomatic move,” columnist Nahum Barnea argued Friday in Yedioth Ahronoth, one of Israel’s leading dailies. “Israel has something to offer: ending the war on both fronts. It has something it wants in return.”

But hard-liners said Sinwar’s death should not be a window to a cease-fire and hostage-release deal, but instead an opening to something they argue is more important to Israel’s security: fighting on to cripple Hamas entirely, shatter Hezbollah and deliver a game-changing blow to Iran.

[Who are Hamas’s top leaders? What to know after death of Yahya Sinwar.]

“The arms of the Iranian octopus were badly damaged, but the head in Tehran, who financed, trained and armed the arms, is still functioning,” former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who has been urging an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, posted after Sinwar’s death. Bennett has surpassed Netanyahu in some recent polls on Israelis’ preferred prime minister.

Netanyahu said Sinwar’s death vindicates his choice to keep fighting despite U.S. pressure to reach a deal: “It is now clear to everyone, in the country and in the world, why we insisted on not ending the war.”

And there were no signs Friday that Israel was prepared to let up. The Israel Defense Forces posted images on social media of more troops entering northern Gaza, where Israel has escalated its attacks around the Jabalya refugee camp.

The IDF has said it is operating around Jabalya because Hamas operatives have regrouped in the area. But the escalation, and a near-complete cutoff of aid deliveries during the first weeks of October, has deepened the humanitarian crisis for more than 400,000 civilians who remain in northern Gaza.

Residents in the territory said they saw no signs of the IDF loosening its grip. Late Friday, Gaza’s civil defense force said at least 25 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential block in Jabalya.

“The bombing has been relentless since morning,” Abdul Hadi Abdullah, 44, said by phone. The father of six was recently forced to flee strikes in Jabalya. Israel “used to tell us that the key to stopping the war was Sinwar’s presence, but now it seems that was a lie.”

In Hamas’s first comments since Sinwar’s killing, senior official Basem Naim said Friday in a statement that “Israel believes that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people … but Hamas each time became stronger and more popular, and these leaders became an icon for future generations to continue the journey toward a free Palestine.”

In a televised address, Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chairman of the Hamas political bureau, said the group would not budge from Sinwar’s longtime conditions for a deal, including the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

“To those weeping for their hostages, we say: Your hostages will not return to you unless you stop the aggression on Gaza, pull out and release our prisoners in occupation prisons,” he said.

Another senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Mardawi, told The Washington Post on Friday that no new cease-fire proposals have been presented to the group. In any case, he said, Hamas would first move to replace Sinwar before reentering negotiations.

“The priority is to choose a new Hamas leader within a short time,” he said.

Iran on Friday hailed Sinwar as a martyr who fought to the end. A social media post from Tehran’s U.N. mission contrasted his death with that of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who “begged them not to kill him” when he was captured by U.S. soldiers in 2003. The post said that “the spirit of resistance will be strengthened” by Sinwar’s death on the battlefield.

The IDF provided more details of Sinwar’s killing Friday but said key parts remain under investigation.

The fighter who turned out to be Sinwar was spotted Wednesday by a group of soldiers in Rafah, according to an IDF spokesman, Col. Nadav Shoshani. He was walking behind two other Hamas operatives, a configuration the IDF had seen before when senior leaders were on the move.

The firefight that followed unfolded over hours in the broken urban terrain. One of the Israeli soldiers was seriously wounded, Shoshani said, and had to be evacuated under fire.

Two of the Hamas fighters retreated into one building, the rear figure into another. Preliminary findings suggested that at some point grenades were being thrown from the area where the rear figure had fled, Shoshani said.

After almost a day of fighting, the Israelis sent a drone to surveil the room and saw the figure slumped in an armchair, bleeding from the arm but alert enough to throw an object at the aircraft. They shot at least one tank round into the building and, waiting until morning to enter, found the figure later identified as Sinwar.

He was bleeding badly and had been “in the process of dying for at least several hours,” an Israeli medical examiner said Friday in an interview with Israel’s public broadcaster.

The cause of death was a gunshot to the head, he said. But it was not clear who fired the shot or at what point during the battle.

In the West Bank, many Palestinians were fixated on the news of Sinwar’s death. He remained a figure of resistance for many who have lived for decades as refugees pushed from their ancestral homes and lands in Israel.

At a stall in Ramallah, Issa Abu Awad, 23, from Hebron in the southern West Bank, was selling fruits and vegetables. He graduated with a degree in accountancy but couldn’t find a job.

Sinwar was a source of hope for young Palestinians, Abu Awad said, adding that many thought the upheaval following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks would produce a positive change for Palestinians. But a year later, “nothing good has come out of it,” he said. “The situation is very hard now. There is no work. The situation is terrible.”

Many in Ramallah pushed back on Israel’s characterization of Sinwar dying ignobly and on the run.

“He died as a hero, and he brings honor to the Arab countries,” said Moussa Manasra, 35, who was running an apple stall in the city’s main open-air produce market.

At a cafe, older men sat on plastic chairs, their eyes glued to a TV screen where an Al Jazeera broadcast was playing footage of Sinwar on a loop - alive, shaking hands with constituents in Gaza several years ago, and lying dead in photos leaked by Israeli security forces Thursday.

Sinwar was “not hiding as a coward as the Israelis were saying,” said Faisal Sayid, 60, one of the men in the cafe. “He was at the top of his job and fighting the Israelis on the ground. The whole American and Israeli intelligence couldn’t [find him]. Sinwar after this will make history.”

Popular support for Hamas remains strong, and its members are committed to their cause.

“He was not assassinated by Israel; it was America who assassinated him!” Mahmoud Ahmed, 84, piped up from across the table.

Ahmed was a small boy when his family was displaced from what is now Tel Aviv in 1948, during what Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe.” In the nearly eight decades since, he has seen resistance leaders come and go.

“If Sinwar was killed, his successor will be 20 times better than him - more courageous,” Ahmed said.

He placed the blame for the tens of thousands of people killed in Israel’s war in Gaza on Biden, for giving material and political support to Netanyahu.

“This illustrates the true face of the criminals, of the Americans and the Israelis. … There’s no democracy - where is the democracy?” he said.

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Parker reported from Ramallah. Sufian Taha in Ramallah and Hazem Balousha in Toronto contributed to this report.