Important Takeaways:
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had “settled the score with him,” but stressed that “the task before us [Israel] is not yet complete.”
- Netanyahu said Israel’s focus was on securing the return of the roughly 100 hostages still in Gaza, taken during Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack last year, of whom a third are believed to be dead.
- “This is an important moment in the war,” Netanyahu said to the families of the hostages, according to the Reuters news agency. “We will continue full force until the return home of all your loved ones, who are our loved ones, too. This is our supreme obligation. This is my supreme obligation.”
- President Biden said Sinwar’s death after almost two decades of Hamas rule in Gaza was good news, “for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.” Along with other senior U.S. officials, he indicated that it should bring new hope for a cease-fire in the year-long war.
- But Hamas did not mention any renewed push for a cease-fire agreement with Israel after the killing of its leader.
- Deputy Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya confirmed Sinwar’s death Friday in a televised speech, and said the group would continue on the same path it’s been on. Al-Hayya said Hamas would not release the remaining hostages without a cease-fire deal and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
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Important Takeaways:
- The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the attack that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip, marked a major triumph for Israel. But Israeli leaders are also seeking to lock in strategic gains that go beyond military victories – to reshape the regional landscape in Israel’s favor and shield its borders from any future attacks, sources familiar with their thinking say.
- By intensifying its military operations against Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel wants to ensure that its enemies and their chief patron, Iran, don’t regroup and threaten Israeli citizens again, according to Western diplomats, Lebanese and Israeli officials, and other regional sources.
- It is also planning a response to a ballistic-missile barrage carried out by Iran on Oct. 1, its second direct attack on Israel in six months.
- Israel informed several Arab states last year that it also wanted to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border. But it remains unclear how deep Israel would like it to be or how it would be enforced after the war ends.
- Israel has said it will not agree to a permanent ceasefire without guarantees that whoever runs postwar Gaza will be able to prevent the corridor from being used to smuggle weapons and supplies to Hamas.
- Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last week the response would be “lethal, precise, and, above all, unexpected”, although he has also said Israel was not looking to open new fronts.
- Iran has warned repeatedly that it will not hesitate to take military action again if Israel retaliates.
- For now, Netanyahu appears determined to redraw the map around Israel in his favor by purging its enemies from its borders.
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Important Takeaways:
- The mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, who is believed to be living in Hamas’ massive tunnel system ever since, was released from Israeli prison in 2011 in a swap for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit and has been the head of Hamas’s Gaza operations since 2017.
- He is now the head of the entire terrorist organization, directing its war against Israel from Gaza and its international relations – including negotiations for a cease-fire and the release of the 115 hostages Hamas is holding in Gaza.
- “The change in his title won’t stop us from searching for him. He is spurring us to make an effort to find him and attack him, so he’s replaced again,” IDF Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said. “This title, ‘political,’ does not exempt him from the fact that he is a murderer who was part of all the planning and execution of what happened on Oct. 7.”
- IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told Al Arabiya after Sinwar’s promotion that “there’s only one place we are designating for Yahya Sinwar, and that’s right next to Mohammed Deif” — whom Israel killed — “and all the other terrorists who are responsible for October 7. It’s the only place we are preparing and designating for him.”
- “Hamas is an organization that considers its steps carefully. Something seems strange when they’re taking such an unserious step. They announced the decision was made by consensus, but I’m not sure. Decision-making in Hamas could have been knocked off balance by all the assassinations,” he said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas announced Tuesday that it had named Gaza-based leader Yayha Sinwar as its new leader to replace political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran, Iran, last week while attending the presidential inauguration there.
- Sinwar, who is regarded as the architect of the October 7 terror attack in which Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis, is thought to be hiding underground in a tunnel in Gaza, possibly surrounded by Israeli hostages as human shields.
- The Times of Israel reports:
- Sinwar “is now the most powerful figure in Hamas, formally too,” notes Palestinian affairs analyst Ohad Hemo on Channel 12. “That was already essentially the case, now it’s official.”
- “It’s a show of faith” by the terror group, “whose leadership is rapidly shrinking,” adds Hemo, “and it returns the formal center of Hamas power to Gaza,” whereas in recent years much of the official leadership was overseas — including Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal.
- One advantage Sinwar has over his predecessor is that he is actually in Gaza, not in a five-star hotel in Doha, Qatar, or in a villa in Turkey. Many other Hamas leaders have become billionaires in exile, exploiting aid and smuggling.
- The choice of Sinwar also presents risks for the terror group: Israel could locate him at any moment, and he cannot easily communicate with the rest of the organization. If he is killed or captured, Hamas will again be leaderless.
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Important Takeaways:
- The International Criminal Court intends to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of crimes against humanity for Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, its Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced Monday, on the 227th day of the Gaza war.
- “Today, my Office seeks to charge two of those most responsible, Netanyahu and Gallant, both as co-perpetrators and as superiors pursuant to Articles 25 and 28 of the Rome Statute,” Khan stated.
- Khan first spoke of the warrants in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and then published a video and text statement from the court.
- Netanyahu and Gallant would face accusations of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and willful killing.
- Khan’s statement comes as Israel is in its seventh month of an existential war against Hamas, which led an invasion of the Jewish state’s southern border on October 7, killing over 1,200 people and seizing 252 as hostage, out of which 128 remain in captivity.
- Israel has argued that its actions fell within the boundary of International law, stressing that there is no famine in Gaza.
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Important Takeaways:
- A senior Biden administration official said on Thursday that Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar’s “days are numbered” in a press conference regarding US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s meetings in Israel.
- “I also think it’s safe to say it doesn’t matter how long it takes…justice will be served,” the senior administration official said, adding that Sinwar has “American blood on his hands.”
- Eight US citizens and permanent residents remain among the roughly 135 hostages currently being held captive in Gaza, while 38 Americans were killed during Hamas’s terror onslaught on October 7.
- IDF Spokesperson R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari said that terrorists who surrendered in Shejaia and Jabalya told Israeli security forces on Saturday that Hamas leaders, including Sinwar, were “denying reality” despite being updated on the situation on the ground.
- “The terrorists complain that the leadership of Hamas is disconnected from the serious situation they’re in on the ground,” Hagari said. “There is also a widespread feeling that the underground Hamas leadership does not care about the Gazan public above ground. This also greatly worries the military operatives of Hamas.”
- Sinwar fled Gaza City in northern Gaza to Khan Yunis in southern Gaza in a humanitarian convoy soon after the war began, an Israeli source told KAN news on Saturday.
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