By James M. Dorsey
The opportunity to pull the Middle East back from the brink came and went within hours of Israel’s confirmation that it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Instead of capitalizing on Israel’s tactical success to declare victory in Gaza, push for a ceasefire that could also end hostilities in Lebanon, and negotiate a prisoner exchange that would secure the release of the 101 remaining Hamas-held hostages, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu insisted the war would continue until the Israeli military liberated the captives.
More than a year into Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza in response to last year’s Hamas brutal October 7 attack on Israel, Netanyahu’s problem is that he is pursuing two long-tested strategies that have failed to produce results.
Hamas and its associates killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians and non-combatants, in the October 7 attack. Since then, the Israeli military has liberated only eight of the hostages. Some 110 were freed as part of a ceasefire and prisoner exchange last November.
In the same vein, Israel’s history of targeted assassinations of Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iranians has failed to deal lethal blows to its enemies.
Last month’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia, and much of the group’s military leadership, has not stopped it from persistently firing rockets at Israeli targets and slowing Israeli ground incursions into south Lebanon.
Sinwar joins a long list of Hamas leaders Israel has killed in the last two decades; Sinwar was named Hamas’s leader after Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s political chief, in Tehran in July.
Please read further with open access at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/international-reaction-reported-death-hamas-leader-sinwar-4685901
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Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.