Israel vows to eliminate new Hamas leader as war enters 11th month

JERUSALEM

Israel has vowed to eliminate new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, with regional hostilities threatening to boil over as the Gaza war enters its 11th month.

The naming of Sinwar to lead the Palestinian militant group came as Israel steeled itself for potential Iranian retaliation over the killing of his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh last week in Tehran.

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 new recruits.

Army chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi vowed to "find him (Sinwar), attack him" and force Hamas to find someone to replace him.

Sinwar — Hamas's leader in Gaza since 2017 — has not been seen since the Oct. 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel's history.

A senior Hamas official told AFP Sinwar's selection sent a message that the organisation "continues its path of resistance".

Analysts believe Sinwar has been both more reluctant to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and closer to Tehran than Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar.

"If a ceasefire deal seemed unlikely upon Haniyeh's death, it is even less likely under Sinwar," said Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, adding Hamas would "only lean further into its hardline militant strategy".

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said it is up to Sinwar to help achieve a ceasefire, saying he "has been and remains the primary decider".

Civilians in both Israel and Gaza met Sinwar's appointment with unease.

Mohammad al-Sharif, a displaced Gazan, told AFP: "He is a fighter. How will negotiations take place?"

In Tel Aviv, logistics company manager Hanan, who did not want to give his second name, said Sinwar's appointment meant Hamas "did not see fit to look for someone less militant, someone with a less murderous approach".

  Hezbollah vows response 

Hamas's Lebanon-based ally Hezbollah has also pledged to avenge the deaths of Haniyeh and its own military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike in Beirut.

In a televised address to mark one week since Shukr's death, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday his group would retaliate "alone or in the context of a unified response from all the axis" of Iran-backed groups in the region.

The United States, which has sent extra warships and jets to the region, has urged both Iran and Israel to avoid an escalation.

President Joe Biden this week spoke with regional leaders, while Blinken told reporters the message of restraint had also been communicated "directly" to both Israel and Iran.

French President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu on Wednesday to "avoid a cycle of reprisals", after earlier delivering the same message to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the French presidency said.

Pezeshkian told Macron in a separate telephone call that the West "should immediately stop selling arms and supporting" Israel if it wanted to prevent war, his office said.

Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's killing in Iran, but it has confirmed it carried out the strike on Shukr in Beirut.

  Flights cancelled 

Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli troops throughout the Gaza war.

On Wednesday, a Lebanese security source said that a Hezbollah fighter and a civilian were killed in an Israeli strike near Jouaiyya close to the border. The Israeli military said it had eliminated a Hamas commander in the area.

The Israeli military later said its jets had destroyed a launcher on Wednesday night that had been used by Hezbollah to send drones towards the Golan Heights earlier in the evening.

Numerous airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or limited them to daylight hours due to security fears, while Egypt said Iran had warned civilian airlines to steer clear of its airspace as it will be conducting military exercises overnight.

The United Nations said it was "temporarily" reducing the presence of UN staff family members in Lebanon, although it was not moving its staff.

The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Palestinian group's unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel, has already drawn in Iran-backed militants in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,677 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, mostly women and children.

Israel's army said early Thursday that a strike in Gaza late last month had killed senior Hamas member Nael Sakhl, whom it said was involved in "directing terror activities" in the occupied West Bank.

The war has created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with almost all of its 2.4 million people displaced and suffering from food shortages.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich drew sharp condemnation from some allies on Wednesday for suggesting that "it might be justified" to starve the besieged territory.

"No one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages," he said at a conference earlier this week.

The EU said Smotrich's remarks showed "contempt for international law and for basic principles of humanity".

France expressed its "deep dismay" at the comments, while UK Foreign Minister David Lammy called on "the wider Israeli government to retract and condemn them".