Palestinian resistance will continue after Sinwar: Analyst
Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project and a former adviser in the Israeli government, said the killing of Sinwar will not end Palestinian resistance to their oppression by Israel.
“’This is like Osama bin Laden’ – that’s what the American president said. You kill a terrorist and everything goes happy ever after. But this is a resistance movement rooted in its people because its people are oppressed and denied their rights,” Levy told Al Jazeera.
“This will continue and people will look at this and see someone, I imagine, who is a martyr who gives greater lustre to this cause of the Palestinians,” Levy said.
“Netanyahu did something else tonight. He leaned heavily into this idea that the Middle East region can now emerge out of the darkness. As if the darkness isn’t the destruction – of schools, hospitals, 40,000 lives, scorched earth, Gaza, West Bank, Beirut – that’s been caused by Israel,” he said.
“He is now saying we can remake some fantasy Middle East with an Israeli hegemony without Palestinians. This is not a person whose head is towards peace,” he added.
Well of course, all the assassinations of Palestinian leaders in the past have only led us to today. Hamas itself was created this way, and first supported by Netanyahu to take control away from Fatah. He knows damn well this will only strengthen the resistance, and therefore give him more excuses to keep destroying Gaza and killing more Palestinians (and Lebanese)
Halting US arms shipments to Israel, not killing Sinwar, will lead to Gaza ceasefire: Analyst
Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace, told Al Jazeera the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar will not lead to a ceasefire in Gaza.
“There has been a path to a ceasefire all along and it has to start with the US ending its shipment of arms that enables the war to continue,” Bennis told Al Jazeera.
“I don’t think that there is going to be any change if Blinken goes to the region or if Biden calls Netanyahu. None of that really matters. Their words don’t matter if their actions don’t change and if the actions continue to be sending Israel all of the weapons that they require to enable this war, this genocide to continue,” Bennis said.
“There is no reason in the world that they should see the death of one more Hamas leader – this time Yahya Sinwar – as a change. The war has been against the entire population of Gaza not against one man,” she said.
An Israeli battle tank looms over displaced Palestinians as they flee from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in January
Reported killing of Sinwar neither intelligence based nor targeted assassination: Analyst
Elijah Magnier, a military and political analyst, said the Israeli and US characterisation of how Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was reportedly killed is far from the reality.
“It is not at all an intelligence operation nor a targeted assassination,” Magnier told Al Jazeera. “It’s a clash between three people, three militants who were in a location and opened fire against soldiers who are invading Rafah,” Magnier said.
Israeli forces “opened fire from their tank, destroying the location and this is how, the next day, they found Sinwar with another commander in a house above the ground and not in tunnels,” he said.
“Everybody is claiming victory, quoting intelligence collaboration … Shin Bet from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Kamala Harris saying we have been collaborating to make sure that we reach out and arrest or bring to justice all of the Hamas leaders, which has nothing to do with the reality of the event on the ground,” he added.
In Sinwar, Palestinians saw a ‘fighter battling until the very end'
Netanyahu’s message is the war will go on despite Sinwar’s assassination. We even heard opposition leader Gantz say Israel will remain in Gaza for many years. So there aren’t signals about ending the war, which is a message some tried to offer after Sinwar’s killing.
We have not heard from Hamas on who will replace Sinwar, who will be able to lead negotiations and deliver a deal with Israel.
Different reactions to Sinwar’s assassination were like watching parallel universes. You saw jubilation among Israelis at the killing of somebody they have placed at the centre of their rage for the October 7 attack.
Palestinians saw a fighter battling until the very end. They saw someone not in a tunnel, not assassinated while hiding. But they’re also concerned about what comes next. The fear in Gaza is this circle of hell is never-ending.
Nor hiding behind human shields or hostages nor in a school or hospital as the IDF is so keen to point out every chance they get.
