Published in the Jerusalem Post, 28 October 2024
On October 21 two Hamas
sources revealed to the media that the idea of appointing a leader to succeed Yahyar
Sinwar, assassinated on October 16, had
been ruled out, at least for the present.
The Hamas leadership, operating at arm’s length from Gaza in the gulf
state of Qatar, had decided that the organization would be run, at least until
March 2025, by the 5-man committee set up in August after the assassination of
political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The committee, based in
Doha, Qatar’s capital city, is comprised of Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashaal, Zaher
Jabareen, Mohammed Darwish and the political bureau’s secretary, whose identity
remains anonymous for security reasons.
The internal dynamic of the Hamas organization
had certainly been severely shaken, yet an informed source, well acquainted
with its inner workings, struck an interesting note. Interviewed by the Associated Press, Sadeq
Abu Amer, head of the Turkey-based think tank Palestinian Dialogue Group, believed
that the removal of Sinwar, whom he dubbed “one of the most prominent hawks
within the movement,” was likely to lead to “the advancement of a trend or
direction that can be described as dove[-like]”. He indicated that with Sinwar out of the
picture a hostage-prisoner exchange deal had become practical politics.
Abu Amer was quick to discount any suggestion that Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, if he is still alive, could replace him as overall leader of Hamas. “Mohammed Sinwar is the head of the field battle,” he said, “but he will not be Sinwar’s heir as head of the political bureau.”
Although
somewhat off the mark, as it has turned out, he believed that Hamas’s
Qatar-based political leaders might decide to elect one of their number to head
the organization. He identified the two
front runners as al-Hayya and Khaled Mashaal.
Al-Hayya, aged 63, was
Sinwar’s deputy and headed the Hamas delegation in cease-fire negotiations. In
a media interview in April 2024, al-Hayya said Hamas was willing to agree a truce
of at least five years with Israel, and that if an independent Palestinian
state were created along 1967 borders, the group would dissolve its military
wing and become a purely political party.
Mashaal, aged 68, served
as the group’s political leader from 1996 to 2017. Subject of an assassination attempt back in
1997, he now supports the forces opposed to President Bashar al Assad in the
13-year-old civil war still raging in Syria.
Consequently he is not on good terms with Iran, or indeed with Hezbollah.
He has good relations with Turkey and
Qatar.
Jabareen, once sentenced
to a 35-year prison sentence for the deaths of two Israeli police officers at
the Temple Mount, was released on a prisoner exchange. He headed the 2023 resumption of suicide
bombings within Israel. Mohammed Darwish,
also known as Abu Omar Hassan, has been chairman of the Hamas Shura
Council since October 2023.
First reactions to the news of Yahya
Sinwar’s death on October 16 reflected hope in many quarters that a ceasefire
in Gaza and the return of the hostages was now but a short step away.
Such immediate expectations seemed to be
quickly doused. The first public
statement after Sinwar’s death, made by his Qatar-based deputy al-Hayya, was
that there will be no hostage release without “the end of the aggression… and
the withdrawal from Gaza.”
Israel’s
position immediately after Sinwar’s death was nuanced. The first reaction of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was that the war was not over.
“Evil has suffered a heavy blow,” he said, “ but the task before us is
not yet complete.”
Yet in a message issued
via the media, Netanyahu offered Hamas terrorists free passage out of the Gaza
Strip in exchange for the release of hostages. Anyone who laid down his arms and returned
hostages, said Netanyahu, would be allowed to leave Gaza.
Could this formula
provide the basis for a final hostage return deal? Possibly – provided Hamas’s new Qatar-based leadership committee is
indeed that degree more pragmatic (more “dove-like” as Abu Amer put it) than
its hawkish erstwhile leader. A
reassessment of Hamas’s situation and prospects might persuade the leadership that
re-siting the organization outside the Gaza Strip might be the most effective
way to recoup and recover. Given the
huge losses in manpower that Hamas has already sustained, it is certainly
preferable to continue fighting inside Gaza to the last man.
This scenario, if played out, would not sit well with the aspirations of US President Joe Biden, presidential candidate Kamala Harris, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the many other western leaders who are so free with advice about how Israel should act. The accepted international view has been that Israel should de-escalate on all fronts. negotiate a hostage-prisoner swap in Gaza involving an Israeli ceasefire, stop its attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and the rest of Lebanon, and respond only minimally to Iran’s massive missile launch on Israel of October 1. In the event Israel's response, though far from minimal, was effectively targeted.
Netanyahu’s policy of slowly
but surely eliminating the leadership of the Iran-supported terror armies in
Gaza, Lebanon and the rest of the axis of evil, while depleting their manpower
and wearing them down, is clearly working. The West’s continuous advocacy of
unenforceable ceasefires, peace deals and de-escalation would never have succeeded.
Against jihadist enemies dedicated
to its annihilation, any such appeasement by Israel would have served only to
guarantee the continuation of the multi-directional existential threat.
In the strictly limited
area of the war in Gaza, however, Sinwar’s disappearance may have opened up a
chink of hope. Shin Bet chief Ronen
Bar is reported to have visited Cairo on October 20 to discuss a possible
revival of hostage deal negotiations. Two days later US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken visited Israel, where he reiterated his view that Israel should
seek to exploit the advantage gained by Sinwar’s assassination and press on
with negotiating a hostage deal.
Netanyahu is reported to have concurred.
Blinken went on to Egypt, where reports suggest that discussions
included the future administration and rebuilding of Gaza, involving the
establishment of an international force to oversee the process.
According to an October
19 report in the Wall Street Journal, Sinwar told Hamas negotiators in
Qatar that if he were killed, Israel would offer concessions. On this, if on nothing else, he was apparently
not wrong. On October 21, media reports
indicate, Israel’s TV Channel 12 claimed that Israel had recently indicated to
the US that it was ready to make concessions previously not considered feasible. What such concessions might involve was not
mentioned, but they could be based on Netanyahu’s free passage offer. If the
report is true, their success might turn on how flexible Hamas’s reconstituted
leadership might choose to be in the post-Sinwar era.
Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "A post-Sinwar scenario: What's next for Hamas and Israel now?", 28 Oct 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826351
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