Al Jazeera – October 17, 2024
Israel claims Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed
Israel says its forces have killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that Sinwar was killed on Wednesday in southern Gaza.
“After completing the process of identifying the body, it can be confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was eliminated,” the Israeli military said.
“The dozens of operations carried out by the [Israeli military] and ISA [Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service,] over the last year and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination.”
Hamas has not commented on the Israeli claims. Israel has been conducting a war on Gaza since October last year, killing more than 42,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians. That followed Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, in which 1,139 people were killed.
The Israeli army and police carried out DNA checks to confirm Sinwar’s identity after it said its forces in Gaza had killed three people.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to take the plaudits for Sinwar’s killing but added that it did not mean the war on Gaza was over.
“Today we have settled the score. Today evil has been dealt a blow, but our task has still not been completed,” Netanyahu said in a recorded video statement. “To the dear hostage families, I say: This is an important moment in the war. We will continue full force until all your loved ones, our loved ones, are home.”
Nearly 250 people were taken captive from Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks. About half have been released, and about 70 are believed to still be held in Gaza.
Assassinations
Sinwar, 62, was one of the masterminds behind the October 7 attacks on Israel and has been a prime target for Israel since then.
Chosen as Hamas’s leader in Gaza in 2017, he had previously been held in an Israeli prison for 22 years before being released as part of a prisoner swap in 2011.
His claimed death comes months after the July assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, in Tehran. Israel is believed to have been behind the killing.
Sinwar had been chosen as Hamas’s overall leader after Haniyeh’s killing.
Israel also claimed to have killed Hamas’s military chief, Mohammed Deif, in August although that has not been confirmed by the Palestinian group.
Outside Gaza, an Israeli attack in Beirut on September 27 killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas that has been locked in a conflict with Israel since October 8, 2023, saying its attacks were being conducted in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The war on Gaza has sparked a regional conflict, including groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, and even Iran, which conducted an unprecedented direct missile attack on Israel on October 1 in retaliation for the killings of Nasrallah and Haniyeh.
An Israeli attack on Iran is expected and could potentially drag in the United States, which has sent a missile defence system and soldiers to Israel……
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/17/israel-claims-hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-has-been-killed
Blinken says that Sinwar’s killing should bring end to Gaza war
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says in a statement that the US will redouble efforts in the days ahead to end the conflict in Gaza following the apparent killing of Sinwar in Gaza yesterday.
“On multiple occasions over the past months, Sinwar rebuffed efforts by the United States and its partners to bring this war to a close through an agreement that would return the hostages to their families and alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people,” Blinken’s statement said, repeating the US’s long-held claim that efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement failed due to the residence of Hamas and Sinwar.
Blinken joins President Biden and presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris in saying that Isreal must use Sinwar’s killing to bring a swift end to the war.
Five Israeli soldiers killed in southern Lebanon
While the world reacts to the apparent killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Israeli army has released a statement announcing the combat deaths of five of its soldiers in southern Lebanon.
The incident in which all five were killed, the army said, also saw the injury of three additional soldiers, one of whom was an officer.
The army’s statement also mentions a total of nine other Israeli soldiers who were “seriously injured” in combat between southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Killing Sinwar won't be the death of Hamas, Obama-era envoy says
Alexander Smith
Sinwar's death is unlikely to end Hamas' reign in Gaza, Frank Lowenstein, former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under the Obama administration, told NBC News.
The reality is that Hamas has tens of thousands of fighters and it's likely there was a succession plan in place for Sinwar before he was killed, Lowenstein said. Israel's assassination of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah showed that these groups "survive the death of their leaders."
But that won't be immediate, he added, as new leaders are unlikely to make compromises right out of the gate. It's also unlikely to soften Iran as the regime there may feel it cannot be seen as backing down to Israel as its proxies are hit.
"Killing Sinwar may have a significant impact on the Israeli side by giving Bibi more political space to eventually make some compromises," Lowenstein said, referring to Netanyahu. "But for now, seems likely the IDF will try to take advantage of the opportunity to strike hard at Hamas when they are reeling, as they did in Lebanon after Nasrallah."
Al Mayadeen – October 17, 2024
Who is Yahya Sinwar, the artist behind Operation Al-Aqsa Flood?
This article traces the history of Yahya Sinwar from his early days as a revolutionary youth to his two-decade-long sentence in Israeli prisons climbing up the ranks of Hamas to organize the groundbreaking Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
"Life imitates art," the late Irish literary artist Oscar Wilde iconically writes in a piece published back in the 19th century. "The self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and Art offers it the beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy," he writes. Wilde makes an interesting thesis in the philosophy of art: the aesthetic appeal of art-making can also be found in lived experience. Life through the conscious efforts of humans can be presented in beautiful forms characteristic of the fine arts: replacing the seeming dullness of life with awe.
Literary devices, for example, like foreshadowing (hinting at the dramatic ending early on while the plot is still unfolding), and irony of fate (the pleasing contrast between the anticipated and the eventual outcome) are some of these beautiful forms through which life can be made awe-inspiring.
Aesthetics is justifiably considered an unseemly theoretical framework for approaching the recent political events and figures in Palestine. However, when deciding to write on Yahya Sinwar, I chose to opt for Aesthetics to bring into focus the admirable and awe-inspiring character of Sinwar against the backdrop of the vilification campaign he has been subjected to by Israeli and Western media.
Sinwar, like many Palestinian artists who have doubled as revolutionaries, admirably triumphs the liberation of his people in a beautiful framing. As opposed to the others, however, Sinwar is a very practical and materialistically consequential artist. His masterpiece was not a poem or a painting but a revolution in real-time. I think of Yahya Sinwar as an artist and Al-Aqsa Flood as his masterpiece.
Yahya al-Sinwar Foreshadowing Al-Aqsa Flood
October 7th will be forever marked as a watershed moment in the history of the colonial state in which young fighters circumvented the high-tech Israeli security measures: breaking the zionist siege enforced on Gaza and revolting against their occupiers.
According to estimates by the French news website Media Part, in the span of only 6 hours, Resistance fighters managed to inflict cataclysmic destruction on the colonial state, neutralizing 1000, leaving more than 2,000 injured, and taking hundreds captive.
"This abominable attack was decided upon by Yahya Sinwar," the IOF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said shortly after the operation.
Sinwar, whose name literally translates to the fisherman or the crafter of fishing hooks in Arabic, was seen to be at the crest of the Al-Aqsa Flood when it came crashing down on the Zionist colonial state.
A report written by Reuters earlier this month recalls a speech made by Sinwar back in 2022 uncannily foreshadowing the events of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in his choice of wording.
In a speech addressing the Israeli security establishment on December 14 last year, during a popular ceremony in Gaza celebrating the 35th anniversary of Hamas' establishment, Sinwar specifically threatened the Israelis with an impending "flood".
"We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in an unceasing flood of fighters, we will come to you with millions of our people, like an incessant tide," Yahya Sinwar said in a televised speech in front of a crowd in Gaza.
Reuters notes that by the time of the speech, Sinwar along with Mohammed al-Deif, the commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, had already hatched secret plans for October 7.
Looking back at it in retrospect, Sinwar's statements, which were interpreted as empty threats and exaggeration, turned out to be a warning of the imminent operation. The Israeli establishment misinterpreted it as a hyperbole when it was foreshadowing.
Yahya Sinwar: Revolution & Armed Resistance
Sinwar is originally from the coastal city of Askalan whose indigenous Palestinian population made a livelihood out of the fishing industry before being dispossessed by Zionist militias.
He was born in the Khan Younis camp in Gaza to refugee parents who had been forcibly displaced in the Nakba of 1948. Yahya was heavily involved in political activism since his early years. As an undergraduate, he led the Islamic Bloc at the Islamic University of Gaza where he received a Bachelor's degree in Arabic Studies.
In 1982, Sinwar, at the age of 19, was arrested for the first time for being involved in revolutionary anti-Zionist activism. He would serve a few months in Israeli prisons where he would grow even more dedicated to the Palestinian revolution.
After serving a few months in Israeli prisons, Sinwar left prison more dedicated and better connected after meeting other Palestinian revolutionaries in prison.
In 1985, he was arrested again. During his second sentence in Israeli prisons, he met Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder and leader of Hamas, which would be established a few years later. His affinity with Yassin would grant him an aura of honor and would pave the way for his ascension within the ranks of Hamas.
Upon his release later in 1985, Sinwar would work extensively in political organizing: upscaling his activism into organized armed action. That year Sinwar would co-found the Al-Majd organization. The armed group, which would later coalesce into Hamas, was dedicated to ridding Gaza of traitors. Sinwar, at the helm of the Al-Majd group, would fish out local collaborators and spies, and execute them.
Sinwar's security work back then was part of the accumulated efforts in the unfolding strategy of consolidating Gaza as the stronghold of resistance, the Archimedes point of Palestinian liberation.
In 1988, aged 25, Sinwar was arrested for the third time and sentenced to life in prison for foiling Israeli espionage and subversive measures in Gaza.
Sinwar's 23-year sentence in Israeli prisons
Forcefully separated from the praxis of the liberation movement, Yahya Sinwar spent the prime days of his adulthood in Israeli prisons.
From afar, he witnessed the quick unfolding of history, the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the slow consolidation of US hegemony, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2000, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Oslo Accords which neutralized the PLO in 1993, and the subsequent proliferation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank; all of which must have infuriated him with restlessness to resume his praxis of revolution.
Correspondingly, he also witnessed the liberation of South Lebanon in 2000, the liberation of Gaza in 2005, the victory of the Lebanese resistance against Israeli aggression in 2006, the consolidation of the regional Resistance Axis' alliance, the First Intifada, and the Second Intifada which must have invigorated him with fervor to resume his praxis of revolution.
Additionally, the game-changing Hamas election victory in Gaza in 2006 must have had him teeming with the satisfaction of a victor seeing the fulfillment of a strategic end he had long worked for; the intermediate victory of consolidating Gaza as the stronghold of resistance.
From Liberated Prisoner to Liberator of Prisoners
In 2011, Sinwar was liberated with a batch of 1,027 others in a prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli occupation.
During his homecoming celebrations in Gaza City, Sinwar expressed his wishes that the Resistance would liberate all remaining prisoners in Israeli jails.
After joining Hamas, he rose quickly within the ranks, replacing Ismail Haniyeh as the Political Chief of Gaza in 2017.
Yahya Sinwar, one of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, today spearheaded the revolutionary efforts to liberate his kinswomen and kinsmen.
Sinwar who was himself liberated along with 1,027 other Palestinians in exchange for one abducted Israeli soldier in 2007, was then in charge of dozens of Israeli soldiers and settlers held captive in Gaza, until his martyrdom.
Six years after leaving Israeli prisons, which were governed by Netanyahu's 2017 government then, he was able to exercise leverage against Netanyahu and his war cabinet to liberate all Palestinian prisoners.
After wishing for the Resistance to liberate all Palestinian prisoners remaining in Israeli jails, six years later, Sinwar drew the plan and enforced the conditions for the liberation of every last Palestinian imprisoned by the Israeli occupation.
In 2018, Sinwar led the Great March of Return in an attempt to peacefully break the siege on Gaza and was met with brute Israeli force massacring peaceful protesters. Three years later, Sinwar led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and successfully broke the siege.
In 2024, following Ismail Haniyeh's martyrdom in an Israeli attack in Tehran on July 31, Sinwar was elected to lead Hamas' Political Bureau in his stead.
While wielding his weapon and bravely confronting the Israeli occupation forces in the Strip, Yahya Sinwar was martyred on October 17, 2024. He fell alongside fellow fighters, embodying the spirit of resistance he had championed for years in the struggle for justice and freedom. Sinwar was martyred as a free man, resolutely refusing to submit to the occupation until his last breath.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/who-is-yahya-al-sinwar-the-artist-behind-operation-al-aqsa-f
Al Mayadeen – October 17, 2024
Day 377 of aggression on Gaza: 42,438 martyrs, 99,246 injuries
The Israeli occupation continues its ongoing genocide for the 377th day, killing and starving Palestinians in the Strip.
The Israeli occupation committed two massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in 29 martyrs and 93 injuries that arrived at hospitals in the last 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry confirmed in its daily report on the 377th day of the Israeli war.
The total number of Palestinians killed since October 7 of last year has now risen to 42,438 martyrs, with 99,246 injured, according to the report.
The ministry noted that several victims remain trapped under the rubble and on the streets, unreachable by ambulances and Civil Defense teams.
Earlier today, the Israeli occupation forces murdered five Palestinians and injured others after targeting their home in southwestern Gaza City, in northern Gaza.
The vicinity of al-Mina in westernmost Gaza City and Palestinian homes in west Jabalia also came under intense Israeli artillery shelling.
Meanwhile, as "Israel" continues targeting displaced civilians seeking shelter and safety, Khalifa School, located near Sheikh Zayed in northern Gaza, was bombarded with internationally banned and illegal white phosphorus bombs, which caused raging fires.
Just a few days ago, Israeli airstrike burned alive Palestinians sheltering in makeshift tents on the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. The crime garnered an abundance of backlash, with the United Nations condemning the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, urging the international community to take immediate action.
Speaking at the UN Security Council session called by Algeria, Joyce Msuya, the UN's acting under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator said, "There is no way to get them the urgent care they need to survive and manage such injuries. If such horror does not awaken our sense of humanity and propel us to action, what will?"
She further stressed that "Israel" must be held accountable, not by words, but by "urgent, unequivocal action," adding that the humanitarian situation is only getting worse, incomprehensible, and indescribable by the day amid the relentless Israeli bombardment.
Al Mayadeen – October 17, 2024
Israel bombs school in North Gaza, killing dozens and wounding 160
Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas strongly condemned the latest Israeli attack, calling it a "repeated crime" in the criminal plans of Zionism to forcibly displace Palestinians.
The Israeli occupation has carried out another deadly assault on a school housing displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza as they gathered for lunch.
In the Jabalia refugee camp, the IOF bombed the Abu Hussein school murdering at least 28 and injuring another 160 according to Gaza's government media office.
The strike caused fires to break out in tents placed in the yard. According to a medical source, some of the injured are in severe condition.
Several martyrs were transported to Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals, according to two medical sources.
Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas strongly condemned the latest Israeli attack, calling it a "repeated crime" in the criminal plans of Zionism to forcibly displace Palestinians.
According to Hamas, northern Gaza has been "exposed to the Holocaust, genocide, and systematic displacement of Palestinians in front of the eyes of the world," questioning international organizations' silence in response to Israeli crimes and massacres.
Tragedies continue to unfold across the Strip as the siege continues for the 13th consecutive day, during which residents are deprived of access to basic needs for survival.
Oxfam and 37 other humanitarian groups issued a joint statement on Wednesday, saying the Israeli bombardment had reached a "horrifying level of atrocity" and that the northern part of the Strip is "being wiped off of the map."
"Under the guise of 'evacuation', Israeli forces have ordered the forced displacement of an estimated 400,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza, including Gaza City," according to the NGOs.
Ethnic cleansing plan underway in North Gaza, Israeli soldiers reveal
Israeli media reports indicate that a plan is in progress to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza and eliminate any Palestinians who remain there.
Israeli reserve soldiers stationed in Gaza informed Haaretz this week that they believe the "Generals' Plan", also known as the "Eiland Plan" is being put into action.
“The goal is to give the residents who live north of the Netzarim area a deadline to move to the south of the Strip. After this date, whoever will remain in the North will be considered an enemy and will be killed,” a soldier stationed in the Netzarim Corridor was quoted as saying.
The soldier stated that the plan does not adhere to any standards of international law.
“People sat and wrote a systematic order with charts and an operational concept, at the end of which you shoot whoever isn’t willing to leave. The very existence of this idea is unfathomable.”
On Wednesday, the report stated that there are indications that, although the policy may not yet have been formally adopted by senior military officials who are reportedly discussing it, the plan is already underway.
Haaretz journalist Amos Harel wrote, "Ideas such as intentionally firing near a population and even measures aimed at starving the inhabitants are currently being discussed."
Major international aid organizations have urged leaders and the global community to put an end to "Israel's" forced displacement in northern Gaza.