His death, which has not yet been confirmed, would be a significant moment in Israel’s yearlong offensive against the militant group and could complicate efforts to release dozens of hostages held in Gaza.
In Gaza, no figure loomed larger in determining the war’s trajectory than the 61-year-old Hamas leader. Obsessive, disciplined and dictatorial, he was a rarely seen veteran militant who learned Hebrew over years spent in Israeli prisons and who carefully studied his enemy.
In 2008, Sinwar survived an aggressive form of brain cancer after treatment at a Tel Aviv hospital.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released him in 2011 along with about 1,000 other prisoners in exchange for Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid. Netanyahu was harshly criticized for releasing dozens of prisoners held for involvement in deadly attacks.
Back in Gaza, Sinwar closely coordinated between Hamas’ political leadership and its military wing, the Qassam Brigades. He also cultivated a reputation for ruthlessness. He is widely believed to be behind the unprecedented 2016 killing of another top Hamas commander, Mahmoud Ishtewi, in an internal power struggle.
The only realistic way I see the situation being better here is if the United States imposes it. Nobody else has the power to do so and keep the peace. The United Nations is losing its credibility every passing day but maybe there is still enough time where Palestine being placed under UN trusteeship with the USA, Israel, and one Arab nation as joint trustees would be acceptable to the key stakeholders here. Eventually, once the situation stabilises, the goal would be to grant the Palestinian state independence from the Trusteeship Council.
The socialists of Lemmy will decry this solution. They’ll call it colonialism and an example of Israeli and American imperialism. And it is. But it’s better than whatever shit-show is happening now. Israelis today will not accept a sovereign Palestinian state and will devote all their resources to destroy it. Organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah will not accept an Israeli state and will similarly continue to expend their resources to destroy. These are resources that could otherwise be used to rebuild Gaza and the West Bank and to make reparations for those whose lives were destroyed in this decades-long conflict.
Israelis see the situation in reverse—if they don’t beat the Palestinians to a pulp every single time without mercy, organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah will overrun Israel and do the same thing to them. It’s kind of like the reason why Japanese troops in World War II wouldn’t surrender to the Americans; they thought the Americans would treat Japanese POWs like how the Japanese treated American POWs.