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Supporters and relatives of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza since the October 7 attacks, hold placards and wave national flags during a demonstration calling for their release, outside the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv on October 17, 2024 after Israel announced the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, calling his death a "heavy blow" to the Palestinian group it has been fighting for more than a year. Photo by Oren Ziv/AFP

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Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1729207885111Screen Shot 2024-10-18 at 7.31.09 AM.png" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Supporters and relatives of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza since the October 7 attacks, hold placards and wave national flags during a demonstration calling for their release, outside the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv on October 17, 2024 after Israel announced the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, calling his death a &quot;heavy blow&quot; to the Palestinian group it has been fighting for more than a year. <em>Photo by Oren Ziv/AFP</em></span></span></span></div><p>JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip was the &quot;beginning of the end&quot; of the year-long war in the Palestinian territory.</p><p>The Israeli military said that after a lengthy hunt, troops had on Wednesday &quot;eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organisation, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip&quot;.</p><p>Hamas has not confirmed his death.</p><p>Netanyahu, who vowed to crush Hamas at the start of the war, hailed Sinwar&#x27;s killing, saying: &quot;While this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it&#x27;s the beginning of the end.&quot;</p><p>He had earlier called Sinwar&#x27;s death an &quot;important landmark in the decline of the evil rule of Hamas&quot;.</p><div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/10/8/enduring-the-war-as-israel-hamas-conflict-lingers-1419">• Enduring the war as Israel-Hamas conflict lingers</a></div><p>The chief of Hamas in Gaza at the time of the October 7 attack that sparked the war, Sinwar became the militant group&#x27;s overall leader after the killing in July of its political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.</p><p>He is said to have masterminded the October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures that includes hostages killed in captivity.</p><p>Israel&#x27;s announcement of Sinwar&#x27;s death comes weeks after it assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a strike in Lebanon, where the Israeli military has been at war since late September.</p><p>With Hamas already weakened more than a year into the Gaza war, Sinwar&#x27;s death deals an immense blow to the organization.</p><div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/2024/10/5/ph-on-guard-ahead-of-anniversary-of-hamas-attack-in-israel-1843">• PH on guard ahead of anniversary of Hamas attack in Israel</a></div><p>US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel&#x27;s top arms provider, said: &quot;This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.&quot;</p><p>&quot;There is now the opportunity for a &#x27;day after&#x27; in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.&quot;</p><div><strong>&#x27;SETTLING THE SCORE&#x27;</strong></div><p>Militants also seized 251 hostages during the October 7 attack and took them into Gaza. Ninety-seven remain there, including 34 who Israeli officials say are dead.</p><p>Following the attack, Netanyahu vowed to defeat Hamas and bring home all the hostages.</p><p>Israel&#x27;s retaliatory campaign has killed 42,438 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.</p><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WHQANQxySvo?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div><p>Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi said: &quot;We are settling the score with Sinwar, who is responsible for that very difficult day a year ago.&quot;</p><p>He vowed the military would keep fighting &quot;until we capture all the terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre and bring all the hostages home&quot;.</p><p>Some Israelis hailed the news of Sinwar&#x27;s death as a sign of better things to come.</p><p>&quot;I am celebrating the death of Sinwar, who has brought us nothing but harm, who has taken people hostage,&quot; said one Israeli woman, Hemda, who only gave her first name.</p><p>Attending a Tel Aviv rally demanding the hostages&#x27; release, 60-year-old Sisil, who also gave only her first name, said his killing presented a &quot;once in a lifetime opportunity&quot; for &quot;a hostage deal to end the war&quot;.</p><p>But whether the Hamas chief&#x27;s death will bring the end of the war any closer is unclear.</p><p>Warning that the hostages were in &quot;grave danger&quot;, Israeli military historian Guy Aviad said Sinwar&#x27;s killing was &quot;a significant event... but it&#x27;s not the end of the war&quot;.</p><p>Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government and international mediators to leverage &quot;this major achievement to secure hostages&#x27; return&quot;.</p><p>According to a statement from Netanyahu&#x27;s office, Biden called him to congratulate him on Sinwar&#x27;s killing, with the two leaders vowing to seize &quot;an opportunity to promote the release of the hostages&quot;.</p><p>Netanyahu said Palestinian militants should free the hostages if they want to live.</p><div><strong>FINAL MOMENTS</strong></div><p>The Israeli military said Sinwar was killed in a firefight in southern Gaza&#x27;s Rafah, near the Egyptian border, while being tracked by a drone.</p><p>It released drone footage of what it said was Sinwar&#x27;s final moments, with the video showing a wounded militant throwing an object at the drone.</p><p>With the civilian toll in Gaza mounting, Israel has faced criticism over its conduct of the war, including from the United States.</p><p>In northern Gaza&#x27;s Jabalia, two hospitals said Israeli air strikes on a school sheltering displaced people killed at least 14 people, though the military reported that it had hit militants.</p><p>According to a UN-backed assessment, some 345,000 Gazans face &quot;catastrophic&quot; levels of hunger this winter.</p><p>Nearly 100 percent of Gaza&#x27;s population now lives in poverty, the UN&#x27;s International Labour Organization said, warning that the war&#x27;s impact on Gaza &quot;will be felt for generations to come&quot;.</p><div><strong>WAR IN LEBANON </strong></div><p>Israel is also fighting a war in Lebanon, where Hamas ally Hezbollah opened a front by launching cross-border strikes that forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes.</p><p>Hezbollah said Thursday it was launching a new phase in its war against Israel, saying it had used precision-guided missiles against troops for the first time.</p><p>On the same day, Israel conducted strikes on the south Lebanese city of Tyre, where the militant group and its allies hold sway.</p><p>The Lebanese National News Agency reported strikes on the Bekaa Valley, after Israel had issued an evacuation warning for civilians there.</p><p>The Israeli military said five soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon, taking to 19 the number of troop deaths announced since Israel began raids into Lebanon last month.</p><p>In Lebanon, the war since late September has left at least 1,418 people dead, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.</p><p>The war has also drawn in other Iran-aligned armed groups, including in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.</p><p>Iran on October 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel, for which Israel has vowed to retaliate.</p><p>Tehran&#x27;s mission to the United Nations said Thursday that Sinwar&#x27;s killing would lead to the strengthening of &quot;resistance&quot; in the region.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>— By Jay Deshmukh and David Stout, Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO: </strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s6a7YYxdoic?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>With Hamas already weakened more than a year into the Gaza war, Sinwar's death deals an immense blow to the organization.</p>

With Hamas already weakened more than a year into the Gaza war, Sinwar's death deals an immense blow to the organization.

Israel PM says killing of Hamas chief 'beginning of the end' of Gaza war

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Israel PM says killing of Hamas chief 'beginning of the end' of Gaza war

Agence France-Presse

Published Oct 18, 2024 07:53 AM PHT

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Updated Oct 18, 2024 10:30 AM PHT

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