Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who orchestrated the October 7th terror attacks, has been “eliminated” by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) troops, less than a month after they also assassinated the boss of Hezbollah.
Soldiers have been searching for Sinwar in Gaza for more than a year, and reportedly found him “by chance” on Wednesday in the southern city of Rafah. This is the same city which most Western leaders—Joe Biden and Kamala Harris key among them—have long urged Israel to keep clear of.
Now, however, Biden has celebrated Sinwar’s death as “a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken added that “the world is a better place with him gone.”
But after its short pause for celebration, the U.S. resumed its calls for Israel to work towards a ceasefire, saying it was now time to “move on.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has himself stressed that “while this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end,” adding:
Sinwar’s terrorists murdered in cold blood 1,200 people [on October 7th] That’s elderly people, Holocaust survivors, children. They brutally raped women. They beheaded men. They burned babies alive. And they took 251 women, men and children hostage to the dungeons of Gaza.
Today, the mastermind of this sheer evil is no more.
He also thanked the brave IDF soldiers who spotted three suspicious figures—Sinwar among them—moving “home to home on the run.”
European leaders also welcomed—or “grimly welcomed,” as Politico put it—Sinwar’s death, all while renewing their calls for a ceasefire. French president Emmanuel Macron insisted, “We should seize this opportunity to free hostages and to end the war. We need to end the military operations … and accept the ceasefire in Gaza, and open a credible political perspective for Israelis and Palestinians.”
Netanyahu, on the other hand, reminded the world that “evil has suffered a heavy blow, but the task before us is not yet complete.”
