Sinwar's Death Seen as 'Seismic Opportunity'

Leaders in Israel, the US, and elsewhere are hailing the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as an opportunity to end the war in Gaza more than a year after the Oct. 7 attacks Sinwar orchestrated. President Biden said the "day of relief" was similar to the one when Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, the Washington Post reports. Biden said it was a "good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world." He said that with Sinwar dead, "there is now the opportunity for a 'day after' in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike."

• "Transformative change" possible. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who confirmed Thursday that Sinwar had been killed in a clash with Israeli troops in Gaza, said the leader's death "opens the door for the immediate release of the hostages and for a transformative change in Gaza—one without Hamas and without Iranian control."
• Sinwar was "chief obstacle" to ceasefire. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Sinwar had been the "chief obstacle" to ceasefire talks, reports the New York Times. Miller said there is now a "seismic opportunity" to restart negotiations, adding that the "path that Sinwar wanted for the region—death, destruction, instability, chaos—is a path that we know the people of the region reject."

• Netanyahu says war will go on. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the killing marked the "beginning of the day after Hamas." Sinwar, he said, "committed the most terrible massacre in the history of our nation since the Holocaust, the mass murderer who murdered thousands of Israelis and kidnapped hundreds of our citizens." He said that while it is the "beginning of the end," the war will go on because "the task before us is not yet complete," the Guardian reports.
• Harris: "Justice has been served." "Justice has been served," Vice President Kamala Harris said, adding that Sinwar "had American blood on his hands." "This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza, and it must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination," she said, per Reuters.
• Lucy Williamson at the BBC describes Sinwar as the "one man" who stood between Netanyahu and his promise of "total victory." His death "could open up a path for Israel's leader to declare victory—and even a formal end to the war," she writes. But with breakdowns in communications and a possible" transfer of power under chaotic conditions," Sinwar's death "may also make it harder to put in place plans for the day after—and to find more than 100 Israeli hostages in Gaza, and bring them back."

• Killed by "regular troops." Israel spent more than a year hunting Sinwar with special operations units, but he "appears to have been killed by regular troops on patrol," the Guardian reports. According to reports in Israeli media, Sinwar was one of three militants killed when an infantry battalion operating with a tank unit opened fire on a group of men seen running into a building. Sources tell the Times that after part of the building came down and troops searched the rubble, "soldiers noticed that one of the bodies bore a shocking resemblance to the Hamas leader."
• What Palestinians said. The AP spoke to displaced Palestinians in central Gaza. "When we heard the news of Sinwar, it is true that we were sad for him, but at the same time we were happy that the war could end," a woman said. Others said Sinwar had died in an "honorable" way. "After the leader a thousand of leaders will come, and after the man a thousand of men will come," one man predicted.

(More Yahya Sinwar stories.)