Hamas has named its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, as successor to political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week, the group said on Tuesday, in a move that reinforces the radical path pursued since the October 7th attack on Israel.
Sinwar, the architect of the October 7th attack on Israel last year – the most devastating on the country in decades – has been in hiding in Gaza, defying Israeli attempts to kill him since the start of the war.
“The Islamic resistance movement Hamas announces the selection of Commander Yahya Sinwar as the head of the political bureau of the movement, succeeding the martyr Commander Ismail Haniyeh, may Allah have mercy on him,” the movement said in a brief statement.
News of the appointment was greeted with a salvo of rockets from Gaza launched by militants still fighting Israeli troops in the besieged enclave.
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Sinwar, who has spent half his adult life in Israeli prisons, was the most powerful Hamas leader left alive following the assassination of Haniyeh, which has left the region on the brink of a wider regional conflict after Iran vowed harsh retaliation.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the assassination but has said it killed other senior leaders, including Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed in Beirut, and Mohammed Deif, the movement’s military commander.
Born in a refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Sinwar (61), was elected as Hamas’s leader in Gaza in 2017 after gaining a reputation as a ruthless enforcer and an implacable enemy of Israel.
He was formerly head of the Al-Majd security apparatus which tracked, killed and punished Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel’s secret service before he was jailed.
Meanwhile, the leader of Hizbullah on Tuesday pledged a “strong and effective” response to the killing of its military commander by Israel last week and said it would act either alone or with its regional allies.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Hizbullah would wait for the right moment to respond but did not hint on its form or timing. All international attempts at persuading Hizbullah not to retaliate were futile, he said.
“Whatever the consequences, the resistance will not let these Israeli attacks pass by,” he said in a televised address to mark one week since the assassination of the commander, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut.
“Our response, God willing, will be strong, effective and impactful.”
Members and supporters of Hizbullah gathered to watch the speech in a southern suburb of Beirut. Just before his speech began, Israeli warplanes swooped low over the Lebanese capital, setting off a series of sonic booms that rattled windows across the city. There was no comment from the Israeli military.
Concern is rising that the Middle East could tip into full-blown war following Hizbullah’s vows to avenge Shukr’s killing, and Iran’s anger over the assassination in Tehran last week of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The strike that killed Shukr on July 30th was the second time Israel had struck the southern suburbs in 10 months of hostilities between Hizbullah and Israel that are taking place in parallel with the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
Hizbullah earlier on Tuesday said it had launched a swarm of attack drones at two military sites near Acre in northern Israel and attacked an Israeli military vehicle at another location.
The Israeli military said a number of hostile drones were identified crossing from Lebanon, and one was intercepted.
Israeli medical officials said seven people with injuries were evacuated to hospital to the south of the coastal city of Nahariya, one in critical condition.
The Israeli military said an initial investigation indicated the injuries were caused by an interceptor that “missed the target and hit the ground, injuring several civilians”.
Earlier on Tuesday, four Hizbullah fighters were killed in a strike on a home in the Lebanese town of Mayfadoun, nearly 30km north of the border, medics and a security source said.
In Gaza, Israeli forces killed 45 Palestinian fighters over the past day, the Israeli military said on Tuesday, after heavy fighting in which Hamas said it destroyed two armoured personnel carriers during an ambush near the city of Rafah.
The Israeli military said the Hamas official in charge of smuggling operations was among those killed and that his death significantly hit the group’s ability to bring weapons and military equipment into the besieged enclave.
On Tuesday, air strikes killed five Palestinians in the Al-Bureij camp, in the central Gaza Strip, medics said, while two others were killed in a separate air strike in Rafah, near the southern Gaza border with Egypt.
Hamas does not provide casualty numbers for its fighters.
The Islamist movement’s armed wing said its fighters destroyed the two Israeli troop carriers in an ambush east of Rafah. There was no confirmation from the Israeli military.
Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli strikes had killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 66 others in the past 24 hours.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least eight people on Tuesday and overnight.
Hamas-led fighters set off the Gaza war last year, when they rampaged through Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip in a surprise attack, killing about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and seizing some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, in the most deadly single-day attack on Israel in its history.
In response, Israel has conducted a relentless assault on Gaza that has reduced much of the heavily populated coastal strip to ruins and killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. – Reuters