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Joe Biden has told Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as an “opportunity to seek a path to peace” in Gaza.
The US president – who is Mr Netanyahu’s closest international ally – described the assassination of Israel’s most wanted man as “a moment of justice” which raises the prospect of a deal to agree on a ceasefire and the return of the hostages still held in Gaza, as their families issued fresh demands for a release deal.
Mr Biden, speaking from Berlin where he was meeting German chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, said: “I told the prime minister of Israel yesterday, let’s also make this moment an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas.” He added that Sinwar “had the blood of Americans and Israelis, Palestinians and Germans and so many others on his hands”.
Sir Keir Starmer reiterated that in a press conference in the German capital, saying that “no one should mourn the death of Hamas leader Sinwar”.
"The answer is diplomacy and now we must make the most of this moment,” he added. “What is needed now is a ceasefire, immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, immediate access to humanitarian aid and a return to the path towards the two-state solution. as the only way to deliver long-term peace and security.”
Sinwar, who is believed to have masterminded the 7 October attack which triggered Israel’s retaliatory war inside Gaza, was killed in a suburb of Rafah on Wednesday in a seemingly chance encounter with patrolling Israeli troops.
After his identity was confirmed the following day, using DNA collected during the decades Sinwar had spent incarcerated in Israeli prisons, Mr Netanyahu vowed to keep fighting in Gaza until the remaining hostages were released, and to remain there to prevent a weakened Hamas from rearming.
The 7 October attack killed around 1,200 Israelis, while another 251 people were taken hostage. In response, Israeli air and land attacks have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin echoed Mr Biden in remarks from Nato’s headquarters in Brussels. “Sinwar’s death also provides an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a lasting ceasefire, to end this awful war and to rush humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
Describing Sinwar as the chief obstacle to securing a ceasefire in Gaza, White House spokesperson John Kirby also told reporters: “We believe, continue to believe, that finding an end to the war is critical, and we also believe that Mr Sinwar’s death ... can provide an inflection point to getting there.”
Ronen Neutra, father of the Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra, agreed, saying: “We are at an inflection point where the goals set for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages.”
But Sinwar’s Qatar-based deputy Khalil al-Hayya, who has represented Hamas in several rounds of ceasefire negotiations, vowed that no hostages would be returned until “the end of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal from Gaza”.
Mr al-Hayya said Sinwar – who assumed the leadership in July after Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran – had died “confronting the occupation army until the last moment of his life”, as Hamas warned that Israelis were “delusional” if they thought his death “can extinguish the flame of the resistance or force it to retreat”.
In recent months, Israel has killed several commanders of Hamas in Gaza as well as senior figures of Hezbollah in Lebanon as it has intensified strikes, particularly against Hezbollah, across Israel’s northern border. Israel has also launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon in tandem with the increased strikes. Hezbollah and Israel had started trading near-daily cross-border fire in the wake of Israel launching its war in Gaza. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran.
Israeli operations in Lebanon have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, according to the health ministry, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced. Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in the same period, according to Israel.
In the wake of Sinwar’s death, Hezbollah announced on Friday “the transition to a new and escalating phase in the confrontation with Israel”, with the Lebanese militants claiming to have fired new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones against Israel for the first time. Hezbollah’s statement appeared to refer to an explosives-laden drone that evaded Israel’s “Iron Dome” air defence system and hit a mess hall at a military training camp deep inside Israel last Sunday, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens.
Iran’s mission to the UN also issued a statement praising Sinwar, and emphasising that he died on the battlefield and not in hiding, unlike their former enemy, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was hanged in 2006, insisting that his death would strengthen the “spirit of resistance”.
Having long thought to be hiding in the deep network of tunnels beneath Gaza, Sinwar and two other men were identified as likely Hamas militants by Israeli soldiers patrolling in the Tal al-Sultan suburb of Rafah on Wednesday. They opened fire, causing him to flee into a nearby building alone.
The Israeli military released footage from a drone showing Sinwar, badly wounded in the hand, sitting on a chair, his face covered by a scarf. The film shows him attempting to throw a stick at the drone in a futile effort to knock it down.
“He tried to escape and our forces eliminated him,” Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters on Thursday.
