Israel has vowed to eliminate the new Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel with regional hostilities threatening to boil over as Gaza war enters its eleventh month. The naming of Sinwar to lead the Palestinian terror group came as Israel steeled itself for potential Iranian retaliation over the killing of its predecessor Ismail Haniyeh last week in Tehran.
Speaking at a military base on August 7, 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was determined to defend itself. “We are prepared both defensively as well as offensively he told the new recruits. Army Chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi to find Sinwar attack him and force Hamas to find someone to replace him.
The Hamas leader of Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and orchestrator of the October 7, 2023 attack has not been seen since 2017. A senior Hamas official told an international media agency that Sinwar’s selection sent a message that the organisation continues in path of resistance. Analysts believe that Sinwar has been 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, the executive director of SITE Intelligence Group adding that Hamas would only lean further into its hardline military strategy. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said it is up to Sinwar to help achieve a ceasefire saying he has been an remains the primary decider.
Civilians in both Israel and Gaza met Sinwar’s appointment with unease. Mohammed-al-Sharif, a displaced Gazan told an international media agency that “He is a fighter, how will negotiations take place?” In Tel Aviv Yafo, the logistics company manager Hanan who did not want to give his second name said Sinwar’s appointment meant that Hamas did not see fit to look for someone less militant, someone with a less murderous approach.”
Hamas Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, has also pledged to avenge the deaths of Haniyeh and its own military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. In a televised address, to mark one week since Shukr’s death Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on August 7, 2024, his group will 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 have 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 the reporters the message of restraint had also been communicated directly to both Israel and Iran. French President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu on August 7, 2024, to avoid aa cycle of reprisals after delivering the same message to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the French presidency said.
Pezeshkian told Macron in a separate 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 that it carried out the strike on Shukr in Beirut. Hezbollah has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israeli troops throughout the Gaza war.
On August 7, 2024, a Lebanese security source said that one Hezbollah fighter and a civilian were killed in an airstrike near Jouaiyya, close to the border. The Israeli military said it has eliminated a Hamas commander in the area. The Israeli military said its jets have destroyed a launcher on August 7 that had been used by Hezbollah to send drones towards the Golan Heights in the evening.
Numerous airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon and 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 UN 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 Palestinians group unprecedented attacks on Israel (October 7, 2023 attack) has already drawn in Iran backed militants in Syria, Lebanaon and Yemen. The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an international media agency tally 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, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
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 August 7, 2024, 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”.
