Hamas chooses Yahya Sinwar as chief
Hamas has chosen Yahya Sinwar to replace Ismail Haniyeh as the chief of its political wing , almost as a provocation to Israel. Fears are Sinwar will lead a full war in the middle east keeping the Mediterranean in flames for the near future.
Hamas has named its Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, as the successor to former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week, the group announced on Tuesday. This move reinforces the militant path Hamas has taken since the October 7 attack on Israel. Sinwar, the mastermind behind the most devastating attack on Israel in decades, has been in hiding in Gaza, evading Israeli attempts to kill him since the war began. Israel considers Sinwar a “dead man walking”.
Who is Yahya Sinwar?
Born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962, Sinwar joined the Muslim Brotherhood at a young age and studied at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Arabic. During his university years, he led the “Islamic Bloc,” the student wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 1985, Sinwar founded Hamas’s security service, known as al-Majd, which, among other activities, targeted alleged Palestinian collaborators with Israel. He has spent a significant part of his life in Israeli prisons, and after his third arrest in 1988, he was sentenced to four life terms. However, Sinwar was one of the 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners released by Israel in the 2011 exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas for over five years.
The 61-year-old was appointed head of the group’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip in 2017, a position he held until now. The U.S. lists Sinwar on its blacklist of “international terrorists.”
What does this mean for the conflict in the middle east?
There are growing concerns around the world about the Middle East slipping into a large-scale regional war, amid anticipation of Iran’s response to the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh.
“Politico” has stated two possible scenarios; the first is that Iran might launch an attack from its territory using medium-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles against Israeli targets. Iran has reserved its right to respond at the security council, calling for Israel to be punished.
Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, who previously served as policy director for the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, as saying that “this scenario remains an option on the table.”However, Montgomery said it is unlikely that Iran would repeat the same attack it launched against Israel on April 13th in response to Israel’s targeting of its Damascus consulate. That attack relied on drones and missile strikes, which were intercepted by Israel and its allies.
Politico’s second scenario, shared by the Financial Times, is an attack involving a barrage of missiles launched by Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, which would reduce the time available for Israel and its allies to preemptively intercept those targets. Such an attack would be designed to overwhelm Israel’s defenses and give the Israeli military less time to respond.
Iran is trying to find a way to impose some actual and real costs on Israel, to force it to stop striking Hezbollah targets or targets such as the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran and could involve the Houthis in Yemen and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria. It has also been reported that Iran is constituting a foreign legion with fighters from the Axis of Resistance countries, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon under the administration of the Hezbollah on the format of the IRGC as a quick response force of 10000 men. There is a small possibility that Iran may reconsider its plan to retaliate against Israel after Haniyeh’s assassination due to US diplomacy.
The White House had conducted talks through back channels with Iran, such as the Swiss embassy in Tehran and the Iranian mission at the United Nations, urging Tehran to exercise restraint.
At the same time, the White House issued clear warnings to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to obstruct the ceasefire in Gaza, along with deploying a U.S. naval and air fleet to protect Israel and other U.S. allies if deterrence fails.A show of force by the United States in the region might also dissuade Tehran from its decision to retaliate.
The Guardian reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin requested that Iran avoid civilian casualties in any retaliatory attack on Israel.
The newspaper said that Putin’s warning, a close ally of Iran, was delivered by former Defense Minister and Secretary of the Russian National Security Council Sergey Shoigu during his visit to Tehran two days ago. The message was not a rebuke to Iran for its insistence on retaliation, but it reflected Russian concerns that a response to Haniyeh’s assassination could spiral out of control.
