By Patrick Kingsley
For more than a year, the fate of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar seemed entwined with the fate of the war in the Gaza Strip.
Sinwar orchestrated the Hamas assault on Israel last October that killed up to 1,200 people, captured some 250 hostages and prompted a devastating Israeli retaliation that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and laid waste to much of the Gaza Strip.
He was considered the driving force behind Hamas’ refusal to surrender, even as Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion devastated the territory and displaced most of its population. And his survival made it impossible for Israel to declare victory — living proof that Hamas, though decimated, remained undefeated.
Now, after Sinwar was killed, a route toward a truce in Gaza seems slightly more navigable, according to Israeli and Palestinian analysts, even if major obstacles remain on both sides and a resolution to the broader conflict between Israel and Hamas’ regional allies remains out of reach.
Negotiations for a cease-fire and a hostage release deal had stalled partly because Sinwar had held out for a permanent deal that would allow Hamas to retain power in a postwar Gaza. His maximalist stance was incompatible with that of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who sought only a temporary truce that would allow Israel to return to battle within weeks to prevent Hamas’ long-term survival.
With Sinwar dead, Netanyahu could have a stronger argument to persuade his hard-line allies that Hamas has been defeated without the need for further war, analysts said.
“If Netanyahu has a victory picture under his belt, he can be a bit more forthcoming because he is in a much more prestigious position,” said Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.
Meanwhile, Hamas’ remaining leadership, demoralized and afraid, might agree to cede some power to other Palestinian factions to ensure the movement can survive at least in some form in Gaza. The group could also agree to exchange more hostages for fewer Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails — another stumbling block to a truce.
“You could find a weakened, more pragmatic leadership in Hamas that would make some tactical compromises, though not on the strategic issues,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center, a political research group in Ramallah, West Bank.
Still, plenty of obstacles remain.
Hamas is a highly disciplined organization that has survived the killings of several previous leaders. Sinwar’s hard-line brother, Muhammad, is believed to still be alive and to retain significant influence.
And even without either Sinwar, Hamas’ new leadership would be unlikely to withdraw its demand for a permanent truce, or to accept continued Israeli occupation of parts of Gaza, Dalalsha said.
But a new leadership might be more willing than Sinwar to hand over power to a technocratic Palestinian government, or to agree to a temporary Israeli presence in Gaza as long as Israel nominally promised to withdraw permanently in the future, Dalalsha said.
“For the sake of their own physical survival, they may make more compromises than the man who initiated the whole war,” Dalalsha said. But, he added, “They won’t say: ‘Yes, we’ll do whatever you want, Mr. Netanyahu.’”
For Netanyahu, too, Sinwar’s death may not be enough.
The relatives of hostages still held in Gaza pressed Netanyahu on Thursday to use Sinwar’s death as the political cover he needs to agree to a truce that would free the remaining roughly 100 captives.
But the prime minister still has a complicated political calculation. He has promised his supporters that he will dismantle Hamas and remove it from power, and key members of his coalition have threatened to collapse his government if the war ends without Hamas’ total defeat.
Even with Sinwar dead, Hamas retains some administrative and military capacities, displaying a resilience that could prompt Netanyahu to continue the war to ensure his political own survival.
“The question is,” said Rabinovich, “Does Netanyahu rise to the occasion, or does he not?” And regardless of Netanyahu’s answer, ending the war in Gaza would not immediately resolve Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where an Israeli ground invasion is ongoing, or its conflict with Iran.
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