Aged 61 and leader since 2017 of the Palestinian Islamist movement in Gaza, he was named political leader of Hamas in early August after the death of Ismaïl Haniyeh, killed in Tehran on July 31 in an attack blamed on Israel, which did not not commented.
Who is Yahya Sinouar, the “butcher of Khan Younès”?
On September 30, the Israeli army launched ground operations in southern Lebanon to combat the Lebanese Islamist movement.
At midday Thursday, strikes targeted several regions in the south and east of Lebanon, Hezbollah strongholds including the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Earlier, an Israeli strike targeted Hezbollah’s “weapons warehouse” in Latakia in Syria, stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, wounding two people, according to Syrian media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The United States, Israel’s ally, for its part announced that it had struck five underground munitions depots of the Houthis, who control large swaths of Yemen and carry out attacks against Israel and ships allegedly linked to them, in support of Hamas. .
“Stop regional escalation”
After weakening Hamas in Gaza, Israel shifted the bulk of its military operations to the Lebanese front.
In almost a month, at least 1,373 people have been killed in the country, according to an AFP count based on official data, with the UN recording nearly 700,000 displaced people.
Iran, ally of the Syrian regime, Houthi rebels, Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, threatened Thursday to “painfully” attack Israel if it struck targets “in Iran or in the region”, in response to the missile attack carried out by Tehran on Israeli territory on October 1 to which Israel vowed to respond.
This attack was presented by Iran as retaliation for the assassination of Ismaïl Haniyeh, and that of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, killed in an Israeli strike on September 27 near Beirut.
Yahya Sinouar becomes the new leader of Hamas: “When we dissect this decision, we quickly understand the abundance of symbols that surround it”
The head of Iranian diplomacy, Abbas Araghchi, met Thursday in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.
They discussed the “need to stop regional escalation” and achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza, according to the Egyptian presidency.
Hezbollah for its part claimed Thursday to have fired rockets against Israeli troops near the Syrian Golan Heights annexed by Israel, and destroyed two Israeli tanks in southern Lebanon.
Israel says it wants to neutralize Hezbollah on the border to allow the return to northern Israel of some 60,000 people displaced by its incessant shooting over the past year.
Fourteen dead in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, at least 14 people were killed Thursday in an Israeli strike on the Abou Hussein school housing displaced people in the Jabalia camp in the north, according to two hospitals in the area, with the Israeli army indicating that it had targeted Palestinian fighters.
Jabalia has been surrounded and shelled since October 6 by the Israeli army, which claims that Hamas is trying to reconstitute its forces there. The fate of hundreds of thousands of Gazans trapped in fighting is at the center of international concern.
Some 345,000 Palestinians will face hunger at “catastrophic” levels this winter, compared to 133,000 currently, the UN warned in a report published Thursday.
Hamas announces that its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinouar, is the new leader of the Palestinian movement
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, pointed out a “real risk” of famine in the besieged and devastated Palestinian territory, accusing “certain members of the Israeli government” of make “a weapon of war”.
“We are dying slowly,” Khalil Muqat, a Palestinian from Gaza City, lamented to AFP: “We are asking those who have a soul and possess a minimum of conscience and humanity to intervene quickly.”
At least 42,438 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians, in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.
For the head of Israeli diplomacy, the death of Sinouar is an “opportunity” for the release of the hostages
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinouar, killed during a military operation in the Gaza Strip, is an “opportunity” for the release of hostages held in the Palestinian territory.
“The elimination of Sinwar is an opportunity for the immediate release of the hostages and paves the way for profound change in Gaza: without Hamas and without the control of Iran,” Katz said in a statement sent to the press.
