A Hamas official has said the Palestinian group will continue ceasefire negotiations with Israel after it appointed Yahya Sinwar as the head of the political bureau following the Israeli assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Sinwar is Hamas’s leader in Gaza, and the appointment makes him the top political official as well. “The negotiations were managed by the leadership, and Sinwar was not far from the negotiation process. He was part of its details,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Anadolu.
Haniyeh was the highest-level Hamas official outside of Gaza, which put him in charge of negotiations with Israel, although Hamas officials said Sinwar was always involved. The Israeli assassination of Haniyeh was seen as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest attempt to sabotage the chances of reaching a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
“The problem was not Hamas, but Israel, Netanyahu, and the US, which was not sincere in its mediation or in its attempt to push for a ceasefire,” Hamdan said. The US has not publicly criticized the Israeli killing of Haniyeh and is vowing to defend Israel from any Iranian reprisal attack.
Israeli officials have told The Times of Israel that negotiations with Hamas are on hold until after Iran’s expected attack, although if the situation turns into a full-blown regional war, it could end any hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza.
After Sinwar was appointed as Hamas’s political chief, the Israeli military made new threats against his life. “We will strive to find him, attack him, and have them replace the head of the political bureau again,” Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said on Wednesday.
Sinwar's days are numbered. Like Bin Laden, it is just a matter of time.
And like bin Laden's death it will mean absolutely nothing. Other than making Israel less secure and safe for now and into the future. You even admitted as much but you must have an inferiority complex which makes you gravitate to those who use their superiority, made possible by the superpower, and kill with impunity.
May Sinwar live long and prosper through peace.
Yes, the IDF (the USM supplying the co-ordinates) is good at this remote control sort of thing. Come to hands-on, their specialty is but-effing bound prisoners for purposes of interrogation
speaking of coming up with an excuse…!
For 75 years the problem has been the Zionists in Israel.
Been away from this website for awhile. I come back and the first Dave Decamp piece I read centers entirely around a quote blaming Israel from a senior Hamas official that openly supported suicide bombing buses in the 00's.
Kinda hard to take "anti-war" seriously in this cesspool
Sinwar has no motivation to continue the talks because Hamas is winning. But of course one has to keep up appearances.
I heard yesterday that Hamas has not only reconstituted with new recruits all of the forces it lost over the last ten months, but is even larger than it was. They appear able to continue to manufacture weapons, as Jon Elmer pointed out in The Electronic Intifada Youtube live stream yesterday.
Breaking news and analysis on day 306 of Gaza's Al-Aqsa Flood | The Electronic Intifada Podcast