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October 17, 2024 - 6:30pm
Almost exactly a year after Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel, its leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed. This is not the end of Hamas, but it does offer Israel an opportunity to destabilise and fragment the group, similar to what Israel has done to Hezbollah — to cut the Islamists down to a more manageable size and bring the war to a conclusion on terms reasonably close to victory.
As I wrote in these pages a couple of months ago, it is not quite right to call Sinwar “the mastermind” of the 7 October attacks: he was among the lead architects, but Hamas is the Palestinian department of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iran was fully aware in advance of the plans for that day. Still, Sinwar has been the identifiable face of the enemy as Israel wages war to recover hundreds of hostages from Hamas and ensure there can be no future attacks of that magnitude on Israeli soil.
It was important for Israel’s security that Sinwar died. Beyond any of the tactical considerations about the conduct of Israel’s war in Gaza, the country needed to send a strategic message to the region that there is no profit in 7 October-type attacks on the Jewish State. On this score, Israel has succeeded. Hamas’s military leaders — Saleh al-Aruri, Marwan Issa, Mohammed Deif — have all been eliminated, and Hamas’s “political” chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an audacious MOSSAD operation in Tehran. Now, Sinwar is the latest to go.
His apparent successor, Rawhi Mushtaha, was confirmed dead two weeks ago, which increases the chances that Sinwar’s brother Mohammed will take over. The question is how long he lasts. Israel killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah at the end of September, and his relative Hashem Safieddine replaced him, only to (probably) be killed less than a week later.
These killings are not the same. The decapitation of Hezbollah was a targeted operation enabled by Israel’s infiltration of the group, but Sinwar’s downfall came about “by chance”.
There are similarities, however. Like Hezbollah, Hamas has lost most of its leadership cadre. The group will now have to cope with the same disarray in its command structure and loss of some of its “resistance” sheen. Sustained Israeli pressure on Hamas at this point could induce fractures, particularly with the group’s newer recruits and other non-core members, whose post-7 October morale is waning. Hamas might still exist in name, but its capacities could be diminished to a point where the threat it poses makes it strategically and politically possible for Israel to wind down the war.
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SubscribeSomebody please can think about Corbyn and Owen Jones? They have only few friends left to cosplay with.
Interflora have extended Jeremy and Owen’s credit lines.
These wreaths don’t come cheap!
i see the BBC has updated their homepage with the story of Sinwar’s much deserved end with a black background to denote that they are in mourning.
I also notice that everywhere the BBC describes Sinwar as a “terrorist”, in inverted commas. Come on BBC, if Sinwar is not a terrorist, who is?! Sinwar is the very definition of a terrorist! The OED doesn’t need a writen definition, all it needs is a picture of Sinwar. Why can’t the BBC call him exactly what he is? Ask the BBC what a woman is, no answer; ask them what a terrorist is, no answer. If pushed, rather than fingering a real terrorist like Sinwar, they’d probably say a BNP member, or something like that. Terrible and gutless.
Weasels are like that.
It’s a simple equation for Hamas, as it has been ever since Oct 7. Keep the hostages and face fairly certain death; return the hostages and face a possible life. Whichever you choose, Israel, unlike the rest of the liberal democracies, will not stop.