Israel’s Foreign Minister confirms that Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces in Gaza have killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year’s attack on Israel that sparked the war, the army said Thursday. Troops appeared to have unknowingly encountered him in a battle, only to discover that a body in the rubble was Israel’s most wanted man.

Israeli leaders celebrated his killing as a settlement of scores, just over a year after Hamas-led militants in Israel killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others in an attack that stunned the country. They also presented it as a turning point in the campaign to destroy Hamas, urging Hamas fighters to surrender and release some 100 hostages still in Gaza.

“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the beginning of the day after Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

US officials expressed hope for a ceasefire that would leave Sinwar out of the picture. But eliminating him may not end the devastating war in which Israel has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians and destroyed much of the Gaza Strip.

His death is a crippling blow to the group. But Hamas has proven resilient to past leadership losses. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas about Sinwar’s death.

Netanyahu has said that Israel will continue to fight until the hostages are free, and that it will maintain control of Gaza long enough to ensure that Hamas does not rearm — an effective occupation that raises the possibility of months or even years of continued fighting increases.

Earlier this month, Israel opened a new front in its war with Hezbollah, stepping up bombardment in Lebanon and launching a ground campaign against the Iran-backed militia after a year of cross-border fire trading.

In his speech on Sinwar’s death, Netanyahu said: “Our war is not over yet.”

President Joe Biden called Sinwar’s death a “good day for Israel, for the United States and for the world,” saying it opens the way for “a political settlement that provides a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians.” He said he would talk to Netanyahu “to discuss the path to bringing the hostages home to their families and ending this war once and for all.”

Sinwar has been Hamas’s top leader in the Gaza Strip for years, closely linked to its military wing and has dramatically built up its capabilities. He was elevated to Hamas’s top spot in July after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an apparent Israeli attack in the Iranian capital Tehran.

In recent months, Israel has eliminated a series of senior figures from Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah with airstrikes. Israel claims to have killed the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike, but the group claims he survived.

But in Sinwar’s case, troops found him by chance.

An Israeli military official said Sinwar was “engaged in a battle” with Israeli forces operating in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah and was seen running into a building. The army bombarded the building with tank fire.

The military had suspected that a number of top Hamas officials, including Sinwar, were in the area, but Sinwar was not the target of the day’s specific operations, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing rules.

Visiting the site of the killing, Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said that although the army had carried out “a lot of special operations in this war where we had excellent intelligence… Here we didn’t have it and the response was very, very strong .”

Photos circulating online showed the body of a man resembling Sinwar with a gaping head wound, wearing a military-style vest, half-buried in the rubble of a destroyed building. The security official confirmed that the photos were taken at the scene by Israeli security officials. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

The army said three militants were killed in the operation. Police said one of them was confirmed as Sinwar through dental records, fingerprints and DNA tests. Sinwar was imprisoned by Israel from the late 1980s until 2011, during which time he underwent treatment for brain cancer, leaving Israeli authorities with extensive medical records.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant addressed Hamas fighters, saying it is “time to come out, release the hostages, raise your hands and surrender.”

Netanyahu said Israel has “settled the score” with the man behind the October 7 attack, and that “evil has suffered a severe blow.” But he added: “the task before us is not yet complete.”

He said that anyone in Hamas who surrendered weapons and helped return the hostages would be able to leave Gaza safely. There are still about 100 prisoners in Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Thursday evening for the release of the hostages after news of Sinwar’s death emerged. Some carried signs reading “Sinwar’s end, end the war.”

Ifat Kalderon, whose cousin, Ofer Kalderon, is being held hostage in Gaza, said he was glad Sinwar was dead but “afraid for the 101 hostages…. They might kill them or do something because of Sinwar’s murder.

In the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, a Palestinian woman driven from her home in the north said she hoped Sinwar’s death would end Israel’s campaign. “What other goals do they have than that? Enough. We want to go back,” said the woman, Umm Mohammed.

Some praised Sinwar as a symbol of resistance to Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank. Ahmed Hamdouna, who also fled his home in northern Gaza, said Hamas could replace him. “After the leader will come a thousand leaders. After the man there will come a thousand men,” he said.

For over a week. Israeli forces are waging a ground campaign in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, saying they are battling Hamas fighters who have regrouped there.

On Thursday, an Israeli attack hit a school housing displaced Palestinians in Jabaliya, killing at least 28 people, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Health Ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, said a woman and four children were among the dead.

The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command center at the school. It included a list of about a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.

Israel has repeatedly hit tent camps and schools housing displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli army says it carries out precise attacks on militants and tries to prevent harm to civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.

___

Sami Magdy reported from Cairo. AP writers Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.