LHamas confirms the death of Yahya Sinouar. In a video statement, the Palestinian Islamist movement reacted this Friday, October 18, the day after Israel announced that Yahya Sinouar had been killed during an operation in the south of the Gaza Strip. “We mourn the death of the great leader, the martyr brother, Yahya Sinwar, Abu Ibrahim,” Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas official based in Qatar, said in the video broadcast on Al-Jazeera channel.
For Hamas, the death of its leader, killed on Wednesday October 16 in Rafah, will only “strengthen” the terrorist group. “The martyrdom of our leader Yahya al-Sinouar […] will only strengthen our movement and our resistance,” said Khalil al-Hayya.
ALSO READ Death of Yahya Sinouar, the man who ruined the Palestinian causeIsrael announced Thursday that Yahya Sinouar, considered the architect of Hamas’ unprecedented terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, was killed during an operation in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. His death “does not mean the end of the war in Gaza, but the beginning of the end,” Benjamin Netanyahu quickly reacted. “The return of our hostages is an opportunity to achieve all our goals and it brings us closer to the end of the war,” explained the Israeli Prime Minister, assuring the families of the hostages that the death of Yahya Sinouar was “an important moment » in the conflict with Hamas.
Refusal to release hostages
While many political leaders see Yahya Sinouar’s death as an opportunity to free the hostages, Hamas’ military wing said this would not be the case until Israel surrendered its weapons. The terrorist movement also calls for the withdrawal of troops from the Gaza Strip and the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
The hostages “will not return […] until the aggression against our people in Gaza ceases, there is a complete withdrawal from the territory and our heroic prisoners are released from the prisons of the occupation,” Khalil al-Hayya said , this Friday.
For Iran, a supporter of Hamas, Yayah Sinouar remains a “source of inspiration” for those fighting Israel in the Middle East, the Iranian Foreign Minister said on Friday. The leader “is a source of inspiration for resistance fighters in the region,” Abbas Araghchi said in a statement, assuring that “the cause of the liberation of Palestine from occupation [israélienne, NDLR] was now more alive than ever.
