Israel checking on possibility it has killed Hamas leader Sinwar

DUBAI/BEIRUT – Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Oct 17 that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed.

“Mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who was responsible for the massacre and atrocities of Oct 7, was killed today by IDF soldiers,” Mr Katz said in a statement.

Sinwar was one of the masterminds of the devastating Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel­ that triggered the Gaza war. He was recently elevated to paramount leader of the Palestinian militant group.

Israel­ has killed several Hamas commanders in Gaza as well as senior Hezbollah figures in Lebanon, including

its veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah,

dealing heavy blows to its arch-foes.

Sinwar’s death could dial up tensions in the Middle East, where fears of a wider conflict have grown as Israel plans its response to the

Oct 1 missile attack by Iran

.

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned Israel earlier on Oct 17 against attacking the Islamic Republic.

“We tell you that if you commit any aggression against any point, we will painfully attack the same point of yours,” Mr Hossein Salami said in a televised speech, adding that Iran can penetrate Israel’s ­defences.

There has been

speculation that Israel could strike Iran’s nuclear faci­lities,

as it has long threatened to do, and other options include attacks on its vital oil sites.

Russia is warning Israel against any strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, state news agency Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Oct 17.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, on a Middle East tour, met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo, with Mr Sisi reiterating Egypt’s call to avoid an expansion of the conflict, the Egyptian presidency said.

However, Israel shows no signs of easing its military campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and it has vowed to punish Iran for

its Oct 1 attack.

In the north of the Gaza Strip on Oct 17, Israeli strikes killed 19 Palestinians, including children at a school in the Jabalia camp that is sheltering displaced people, Gaza Health Ministry official Medhat Abbas told Reuters.

Dozens were also injured in the strike, he said.

Israel’s military said dozens of militants were at the site, and it conducted a precise strike on a meeting point for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group in the compound. Hamas denied it had used the school.

Gazans at risk of famine

Residents of Gaza, which has been reduced to rubble, are also suffering from a humanitarian crisis.

The enclave remains at risk of famine and is experiencing emergency levels of hunger, with intense Israeli military operations adding to concerns and hampering humanitarian access, a global monitor said on Oct 17.

About 1.84 million people across the Palestinian territory are suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity, including nearly 133,000 people experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic”, levels, according to an analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Israel struck Syria’s port city of Latakia early on Oct 17, Syrian state media reported, and the US said it carried out strikes on Oct 16 in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthis.

Qatar, which has mediated in numerous failed ceasefire talks, said there had been no engagement with any parties for the last three to four weeks on the Gaza war.

Israeli air strikes killed 11 Palestinians in Gaza City on Oct 17, medics said, while Israeli tanks attacked Jabalia in the north, where Palestinians and United Nations officials expressed alarm over shortages of food and medicine.

On its northern front in Lebanon, Israel has said it will not stop fighting a now weakened Hezbollah before it can safely return its citizens to their homes near the Lebanese border. It added that any ceasefire negotiations will be held “under fire”.

The air strikes have put Lebanese on edge. Mr Abdelnaser, who was displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold which Israel has repeatedly bombed, recalled Lebanon’s long list of tragedies over the years and seemed resigned to more uncertainty in a country that was once called the Switzerland of the Middle East before the 1975-1990 civil war.

“War has become normal for us. We know that every 10 years Lebanon gets built, and every 10 years it gets destroyed again,” he said.

Hezbollah member of Parliament Hassan Fadlallah said the armed group would keep fighting, but he reiterated its leaders are carefully coordinating with Lebanon’s Speaker of Parliament in efforts to reach a ceasefire. Israeli soldiers have not managed to control any villages in south Lebanon, he added.

Israel said its ground operation has so far killed dozens of Hezbollah fighters and that its troops have seized thousands of weapons and destroyed the group’s bunkers and tunnel below southern Lebanon’s villages.

These were being used as staging grounds to launch an attack resembling Hamas’ devastating cross-border raid on Israel,

which sparked the Gaza war on Oct 7, 2023,

Israel added.

The Israeli military said on Oct 17 that over the past 24 hours, it had killed 45 Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.

Israeli operations in Lebanon have killed at least 2,350 people over the past year, according to the Health Ministry, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced. The death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but includes hundreds of women and children.

Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in the same period, said Israel.

The Israeli military on Oct 17 issued evacuation warnings for residents of the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon focusing on three buildings in Tamnine town, and Saraain El Tahta and Sefri villages, where it said Hezbollah maintained facilities.

“For your safety and the safety of your family, you must evacuate this building and the surrounding buildings immediately and stay at least 500 metres away from them,” military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.

Peacekeepers report more fire

Israel has come

under scrutiny for its dealings with UN peacekeepers

in south Lebanon.

The UN mission in Lebanon (Unifil) said its peacekeepers observed an Israeli tank firing at their watchtower near southern Lebanon’s Kfar Kela on the morning of Oct 16. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, Unifil said.

Israel’s military said the incident, the latest in a number of attacks that Unifil says have targeted its troops, was under investigation.

“Unifil infrastructure sites and forces are not a target and every irregular incident will be thoroughly examined,” the Israeli military said, adding that Hezbollah has been operating from “sites that have been built within and adjacent to Unifil posts for many years”.

Israel has called on the UN to move members of the Unifil peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon out of the combat zone for their safety.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations.

“We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza, and I am saying it here,” he said, according to a statement from his office. REUTERS