Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is now in its 11th month with no end in sight and Tel Aviv vowing to kill new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar.
The naming of Sinwar to lead the Palestinian resistance group came as Israel braced for potential Iranian retaliation over the killing of his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh last week in Tehran.
Speaking at a military base Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “determined” to defend itself.
“We are prepared both defensively and offensively,” he told new recruits.
Army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi vowed to “find him (Sinwar), attack him” and force Hamas to find someone to replace him.
Sinwar – Hamas’s leader in Gaza since 2017 – has not been seen since the Oct. 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history.
A senior Hamas official told AFP Sinwar’s selection sent a message that the organization “continues its path of resistance.”
Analysts believe Sinwar has been both more reluctant to agree to a Gaza cease-fire and closer to Tehran than Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar.
“If a cease-fire deal seemed unlikely upon Haniyeh’s death, it is even less likely under Sinwar,” claimed Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, adding Hamas would “only lean further into its hardline … strategy.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said it is up to Sinwar to help achieve a cease-fire, saying he “has been and remains the primary decider.”
Hezbollah vows response
Hamas’ Lebanon-based ally Hezbollah has also pledged to avenge the deaths of Haniyeh and its own military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike in Beirut.
In a televised address to mark one week since Shukr’s death, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday his group would retaliate “alone or in the context of a unified response from all the axis” of Iran-backed groups in the region.
The United States, which has sent extra warships and jets to the region, has urged both Iran and Israel to avoid an escalation.
President Joe Biden this week spoke with regional leaders, while Blinken told reporters the message of restraint had also been communicated “directly” to both Israel and Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu on Wednesday to “avoid a cycle of reprisals,” after earlier delivering the same message to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the French presidency said.
Pezeshkian told Macron in a separate telephone call that the West “should immediately stop selling arms and supporting” Israel if it wanted to prevent war, his office said.
Flights canceled
Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli troops throughout Tel Aviv’s war on Gaza.
On Wednesday, a Lebanese security source said that a Hezbollah fighter and a civilian were killed in an Israeli strike near Jouaiyya close to the border. The Israeli military said it had eliminated a Hamas leader in the area.
The Israeli military later said its jets had destroyed a launcher Wednesday night that had been used by Hezbollah to send drones toward the Golan Heights earlier in the evening.
Numerous airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or limited them to daylight hours due to security fears while Egypt said Iran had warned civilian airlines to steer clear of its airspace as it will be conducting military exercises overnight.
The United Nations said it was “temporarily” reducing the presence of U.N. staff family members in Lebanon, although it was not moving its staff.
Israel’s genocidal war was triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion and has already drawn in Iran-backed groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
The incursion caused the deaths of 1,198 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian resistance groups seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s war has killed at least 39,677 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
