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Palestinians flee western Rafah on June 29, 2024, on a road damaged by Israeli buldozers during a raid on al-Mawasi area, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas movement. Eyad Baba, AFP/File

Palestinians flee western Rafah on June 29, 2024, on a road damaged by Israeli buldozers during a raid on al-Mawasi area, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas movement. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

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ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1723051887022AFP__20240629__34ZM9RP__v2__Preview__PalestinianIsraelConflict.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="Palestinians flee western Rafah on June 29, 2024, on a road damaged by Israeli buldozers during a raid on al-Mawasi area, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas movement. Eyad Baba, AFP/File"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Palestinians flee western Rafah on June 29, 2024, on a road damaged by Israeli bulldozers during a raid on al-Mawasi area, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas movement. <em>Eyad Baba, AFP/File</em></span></span></span></div><p>JERUSALEM -- Israel vowed to &quot;eliminate&quot; new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, whose appointment further inflamed regional tensions as the Gaza war entered its 11th month on Wednesday.</p><p>The naming of Sinwar to lead the Palestinian militant group came as Israel braced for potential Iranian retaliation over the killing of his predecessor Ismael Haniyeh last week in Tehran.</p><p>Speaking at a military base on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was &quot;determined&quot; to defend itself.</p><p>&quot;We are prepared both defensively and offensively,&quot; he told new recruits.</p><p>Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said late Tuesday that Sinwar&#x27;s promotion was &quot;yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him and wipe this vile organization off the face of the earth&quot;.</p><p>Sinwar -- Hamas&#x27;s leader in Gaza since 2017 -- has not been seen since the October 7 attack, which was the deadliest in Israel&#x27;s history.</p><p>A senior Hamas official told AFP that the selection of Sinwar sent a message that the organization &quot;continues its path of resistance&quot;.</p><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/8/7/alleged-mastermind-of-october-7-attack-is-new-hamas-chief-825">READ: Alleged mastermind of October 7 attack is new Hamas chief</a></div><p>Hamas&#x27;s Lebanese ally Hezbollah congratulated Sinwar and said the appointment affirms &quot;the enemy... has failed to achieve its objectives&quot; by killing Hamas leaders and officials.</p><p>Analysts believe Sinwar has been both more reluctant to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and closer to Tehran than Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar.</p><p>&quot;If a ceasefire deal seemed unlikely upon Haniyeh&#x27;s death, it is even less likely under Sinwar,&quot; according to Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group.</p><p>&quot;The group will only lean further into its hardline militant strategy of recent years,&quot; she added.</p><p>US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that it was up to Sinwar to help achieve a ceasefire, saying he &quot;has been and remains the primary decider&quot;.</p><p>Civilians in both Israel and Gaza met Sinwar&#x27;s appointment with unease.</p><p>Mohammad al-Sharif, a displaced Gazan, told AFP: &quot;He is a fighter. How will negotiations take place?&quot;</p><p>In Tel Aviv, logistics company manager Hanan, who did not want to give his second name, said Sinwar&#x27;s appointment meant Hamas &quot;did not see fit to look for someone less militant, someone with a less murderous approach&quot;.</p><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/8/7/nearly-40-000-and-counting-the-struggle-to-keep-track-of-gaza-deaths-1905">Nearly 40,000 and counting: The struggle to keep track of Gaza deaths</a></div><div><strong>- Hezbollah vows response -</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/TEqpY55kRf4?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span>Iran-backed Hezbollah has also pledged to avenge the deaths of Haniyeh and its own military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike in Beirut hours earlier.</div><p>In a televised address to mark one week since Shukr&#x27;s death, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday his group would retaliate &quot;alone or in the context of a unified response from all the axis&quot; of Iran-backed groups in the region.</p><p>The United States, which has sent extra warships and jets to the region, urged both Iran and Israel to avoid an escalation.</p><p>President Joe Biden had calls with Jordan&#x27;s King Abdullah II, the Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Tuesday.</p><p>&quot;No one should escalate this conflict. We&#x27;ve been engaged in intense diplomacy with allies and partners, communicating that message directly to Iran. We communicated that message directly to Israel,&quot; Blinken told reporters.</p><p>Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a telephone call that the West &quot;should immediately stop selling arms and supporting&quot; Israel if it wants to prevent war, his office said.</p><p>The Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation met on Wednesday to discuss the situation in the Middle East.</p><p>Gambian Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara, whose country currently chairs the bloc, said the &quot;heinous&quot; killing of Haniyeh risked &quot;leading to a wider conflict that could involve the entire region&quot;.</p><p>Israel has not commented on Haniyeh&#x27;s killing but confirmed it had carried out the strike on Shukr.</p><p>It held the Hezbollah commander responsible for a rocket attack in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children.</p><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/8/7/blinken-warns-iran-but-also-israel-not-to-escalate-932">READ: Blinken warns Iran but also Israel not to &#x27;escalate&#x27;</a></div><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/8/5/flurry-of-diplomacy-to-ease-mideast-tensions-as-israel-awaits-iran-attack-428">READ: Flurry of diplomacy to ease Mideast tensions as Israel awaits Iran attack</a></div><div><strong>- Flights canceled -</strong></div><p>Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli troops throughout the Gaza war.</p><p>The group said Tuesday that six of its fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon and that it had launched &quot;dozens of Katyusha rockets&quot; at a military base in the Golan Heights in retaliation.</p><p>Numerous airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or limited them to daylight hours.</p><p>The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Palestinian group&#x27;s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, has already drawn in Iran-backed militants in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.</p><p>The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.</p><p>Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.</p><p>Israel&#x27;s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,677 people, according to the Hamas-run territory&#x27;s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.</p><p>The toll included two dozen deaths in the past 24 hours, according to ministry figures.</p><p>Israel said that its air force had &quot;struck dozens of terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip&quot; over the past day.</p><div><strong>© 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/NA6Lgy1B51s?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div>

<p>Israel vowed to "eliminate" new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, whose appointment further inflamed regional tensions as the Gaza war entered its 11th month on Wednesday.</p>

Israel vowed to "eliminate" new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, whose appointment further inflamed regional tensions as the Gaza war entered its 11th month on Wednesday.

Israel vows to 'eliminate' new Hamas leader as war enters 11th month

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Israel vows to 'eliminate' new Hamas leader as war enters 11th month

Agence France-Presse,

Louis Baudoin-Laarman with Laure Al Khoury in Beirut

Published Aug 08, 2024 01:35 AM PHT

Read More:

Israel

Hamas

Palestine

Gaza

Yahya Sinwar

Israel-Palestine War

Benjamin Netanyahu

Lebanon

Hezbollah

Joe Biden

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