After Sinouar’s death, “we must not take the rhetoric of the belligerents at face value”

Two days after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinouar, killed by the Israeli army in Gaza, the Islamist movement announced that its movement was emerging strengthened, while the Israeli chief of staff warns that the war will not end. won’t stop for a long time. “The death of Sinouar is still a turning point”estimated David Khalfa. “We should not take the rhetoric of the belligerents at face value. He was a figure who really centralized the decision-making process, both politically and militarily, within the Palestinian Islamist movement. So it’s a blow very hard, yet another very hard blow for Hamas, and it could change a lot of things on the ground.”

“Conversely, the Israeli Prime Minister, who was considered to be largely responsible for the October 7 debacle, this security fiasco, this state failure, is now also at a crossroads. He must decide whether to continue the war, but with what exit from the crisis, or a ceasefire agreement in exchange for the release of the hostages.”analyzes David Khalfa.

Mohamed Sinouar, “would have the authority to impose a ceasefire”

It’s difficult to predict what will happen in the coming months, especially since “chaos reigns in the Gaza Strip”. “The military structure of Hamas has been dismantled, destroyed by the Israeli army. Now it is a much more decentralized movement, much more rhizomic, organized like a local network, with less seasoned commanders. Which is difficult today , it is to know who will take over from Sinouar If it is his brother Mohamed Sinouar, we will be in a form of continuity He is a very brutal personality, very feared by the Gazans themselves: but he. would have the authority to possibly, in the event of a negotiation, impose a cease-fire.”

David Khalfa also returns to the controversy surrounding the images of Yahya Sinouar’s last moments, filmed by an Israeli drone. “Some people in Israel believe that it was an error on the part of the army to broadcast these drone images, because it gave the feeling, somewhere, that Sinwar had fought with weapons in hand until the end. This fuels this narrative of a certain number of supporters of Hamas, of a kind of hero, of martyr of the Palestinian cause In reality, when we look at the polls in Gaza, those which are somewhat reliable, we see on the contrary that Hamas. is very unpopular, because the Gazans accuse him of having engaged in a kind of suicidal adventurism and of having subjected them to Israeli vindictiveness by launching these attacks of October 7. I think that this communication from the army is enough. largely because Netanyahu needed an image of victory.”