For the Palestinian activist, the confrontation is destined to continue because ‘it has much deeper roots’ than the leaders fighting. Netanyahu claims a victory to offer the Israeli people, but ‘killing a man does not eliminate an idea.’ The possible repercussions on the truce talks and the fate of the hostages still in the hands of Hamas.
Jerusalem () – The murder of Yahya Sinwar causes a “momentary vacuum” within “a party that has governed for years” in Gaza and that faces an immediate future that is “not simple.” However, despite having to suffer “the elimination of senior leaders, the party is not dead, as it was not when Ismail Haniyeh was eliminated in Tehran” or when Hassan Nasrallah was shot for the Lebanese Hezbollah. This is what Adel Misk, a neurologist and exponent of Palestinian civil society, told , commenting on the announcement made yesterday by Israeli leaders about the operation, also random, that led to the death of the Hamas military chief. He was the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attack in the heart of Israel that claimed some 1,200 lives and kidnapped more than 200 people, some still in the hands of the radical Islamic movement, triggering the war in the Strip. A conflict that has claimed more than 43,000 lives and has spread to the ‘northern front’ against the Party of God, and that threatens to set the entire region on fire, with an open confrontation between the Jewish State and Iran.
“Killing a person, even a leader,” continues Adel Misk, “does not eliminate an idea. Of course a vacuum is created, but the conflict does not end and one of the thousands of questions that arise now is who will be the successor and pick up the legacy. An element that is not secondary, explains the activist, because “now the question is who will negotiate to stop the war or discuss an agreement on the hostages. It’s a great question. They are celebrating what they call a ‘big victory’, but I’m not so sure it can be considered such.’ This operation was desired by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “to please public opinion” in his country, but if before “there was an interlocutor for negotiations, including the more than 10,000 imprisoned Palestinians” in the Jewish State, now “There is a void.” “As an Israeli, I would be very worried.”
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar – the man most wanted by Israel by all accounts – represents one of the key moments of the war in Gaza, although it remains difficult to understand the evolution of events. He was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp, in the south of the Strip, to parents from Ashkelon, in the south of Israel, refugees after the massive displacement of Palestinians in the war that followed the founding of Israel in 1948. Sinwar He was arrested for the first time in 1982, at the age of 19, for “Islamic activities” and imprisoned for the second time in 1985, at which time he gained the trust of the historic founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yasin. He spent most of his adult life in Israeli prisons (from 1988 to 2011), where he established himself as a charismatic leader by learning Hebrew and “studying” the “Israeli enemy” closely, before being released as part of an exchange of prisoners: the liberation of about a thousand Palestinians by the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Reactions to the news of the assassination of the Hamas leader were immediate, starting with Netanyahu, who applauded the “brave soldiers” of the Israel Defense Forces who carried out the mission. The head of the government praised the role of the military, although the murder – as it became known in the hours following the announcement – was the result of chance and not a planned intelligence operation. Lebanese Hezbollah announced a “new phase” in the conflict with Israel characterized by an “escalation in the confrontation with the enemy” that will be “reflected in the events and events of the coming days” starting with the use of precision-guided missiles. Finally, Iran, according to which the death of Yahya Sinwar will reinforce “the spirit of resistance” while the leader of the Palestinian movement “will become a model for young people and children who will continue their path towards liberation” from the ” occupation and aggression” of the Jewish State.
Adel Misk, former face of The Parents Circlean association that brings together some 250 Israelis and 250 Palestinians, all relatives of victims of the conflict, highlights how “the situation, day after day, is precipitating not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank itself.” “We are witnessing the destruction of a territory and the extermination of a community,” he accuses, in the face of the “guilty silence” of the majority of governments and the international community. “Not of the people,” he points out, “even in Europe, where we see solidarity with the Lebanese and the Palestinians, but of those who make the decisions and those in power. Seventy years later [de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y del holocausto de los judíos a manos de la Alemania nazi]”The victims of that time have become executioners.”
For the Palestinian activist, Sinwar’s death does not mark the end of the “fight against the occupier”, which has deeper roots, and which are “at the root of what happened on October 7.” There is talk of a “Palestinian terrorist attack,” but few go into details or remember “the causes that generated it.” “A military occupation in Gaza,” he continues, “which for 18 years has turned the area into a prison, where its inhabitants are under tight control and cannot move freely. And the war has caused even greater devastation “with its 43,000 dead, 100,000 injured, two million people forced to abandon their homes, 80% of which have already been demolished.”
Critical issues that not only affect the Strip, but include the entire West Bank, where Israel fights a parallel and silent war that adds to that of Gaza. «[Los dirigentes israelíes] They want to redraw the borders, draw a new map – he emphasizes – like the one Netanyahu presented at the last UN General Assembly: there is no Gaza, there is no West Bank, everything is blatantly erased before the world. “We witness this violence every day, from Jenin to Nablus to Bethlehem.” For the near future, Misk concludes, it remains to be seen what steps Hamas will take and whether “it can become for all intents and purposes a political movement under the umbrella of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), with a rapprochement with Al Fatah thanks to also to the ongoing conversations.
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