Sinwar’s Death Will Hasten the End of the War

 The Hamas leader started this fight. Now Israel can finish it.

On May 14, 2018, the Hamas government in Gaza tried to engineer a breach of the Israeli border at multiple points under the cover of mass protests known as the “March of Return.” The event was heavily covered by the world press. One of the most striking figures caught on camera at the border was a man screaming in Arabic at followers to cross the border and “tear out the hearts” of Israelis.

 

Most reporters either ignored this call for violence, or decided it was some kind of colorful metaphor. The man was Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas commander who’d become the terror group’s new Gaza chief the previous year—and who was killed by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday, in the rubble of Gaza, just over a year into the war he started. 

 

That day in May 2018 was my first concrete memory of Sinwar: I remember thinking he seemed maniacal even for the commander of a terror group. When thousands of Palestinian civilians and fighters answering his call proceeded to storm the fence, Israeli soldiers guarding the border held them back, killing 60; Hamas claimed 50 as their members, Islamic Jihad another three, but as usual, Israel was still condemned for using disproportionate force. The border held. 

 

Five and a half years later, on October 7, 2023, we Israelis weren’t so lucky. At dawn that day, Sinwar’s plan to invade Israel and trigger a regional war caught the Israel Defense Forces off guard. Following Sinwar’s orders, Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 people that day. Israelis, Palestinians, and many others in the region and beyond are now living with the consequences of the attack.

 

Sinwar was the man responsible more than any other for this war, but his death in a booby-trapped house in Rafah—he was reportedly found with a rifle, ammo, cash, a pack of Mentos, prayer beads, and a passport under someone else’s name—doesn’t mean it’s over. He’ll quickly be replaced as Hamas’s leader, probably by his brother and accomplice Mohammed. The organization is in tatters but hasn’t collapsed. His death, however, does bring the end of the fighting closer in Gaza. 

 

Watch drone footage released by the IDF that shows Yahya Sinwar moments before he was killed.

Does not copy... go to story link

 https://www.thefp.com/p/sinwar-death-gaza-rafah?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_id=150372352&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=rd3ao&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Following the assassination of Sinwar’s counterpart from Hezbollah—the shrewder and more prominent Hassan Nasrallah—less than three weeks ago, it’s clear that Israel has successfully brought the war to a turning point. 

 

For me, this moment evokes another from almost exactly 51 years ago, on October 15, 1973. That’s when the Israeli army, after ten days of catastrophe and retreat following a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria in the Yom Kippur War, regrouped and carried out a daring strike across the Suez Canal, changing the course of events. The crossing of the canal didn’t mean the war was won yet. But it was the moment Israel regained the initiative. 

 

Will Israel seize this moment? It now has a chance to begin to orchestrate the end of the Gaza operation after a year of bloodshed; to allow the people of Gaza to start rebuilding what Sinwar, his henchmen, and their deluded supporters have destroyed; and to return the 100 hostages still held by Hamas, dozens of whom are thought to be alive. 

The killing of Sinwar shows that Israel’s patience in prosecuting this war—despite the high price in the lives of our soldiers, and the constant fear of civilians under rocket fire from a half-dozen enemies—is yielding results. And so, it must be said, is Israel’s attitude toward the often hysterical and misguided advice of its allies, who have repeatedly sought to force a ceasefire that would leave Hamas and Hezbollah on their feet. We’ve heard repeatedly, from Western officials who have never fought wars, that military force is counterproductive and that Hamas is an “idea” that can’t be defeated. It was just this spring, amid a broad international pressure campaign to keep the Israeli army out of Rafah, that Vice President Kamala Harris said a major incursion into Rafah would be a “huge mistake.” 

 

Rafah is not only the lifeline of Hamas weapons from Egypt, and the city where Israeli soldiers uncovered the bodies of six hostages in a dank tunnel at the end of August. (According to reports Thursday in the Israeli press, the six, including the American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, may have served as Sinwar’s personal human shields before they were murdered.) It’s also the city where the elusive Sinwar himself was just found. 

 

It may indeed be impossible to defeat ideas. But the tank crewmen who just settled Israel’s account with this terrorist mastermind have illustrated why it’s sometimes necessary to kill the monsters who act on them.

 

https://www.thefp.com/p/sinwar-death-gaza-rafah?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_id=150372352&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=rd3ao&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email