TEL AVIV: Some Israelis felt relief with the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, even as the fate of nearly 100 hostages in Gaza still stirred anxiety.
Israeli authorities long accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack, the deadliest in the country’s history.
Hamas militants overran portions of southern Israel, shooting people, storming military bases and attacking a music festival where they killed at least 370 people.
It was an unprecedented attack that deeply shook the country.
For some, the killing of the October 7 architect brought some closure following a year of fighting in the Gaza Strip.
“It’s like closing the circle, bringing things full circle,” Dolev, a 29-year-old Tel Aviv resident, told AFP, asking to use only a single name.
“It feels like we’ve finished what we set out to do, and I hope this will also lead to an end,” he added, though since late September Israel has also been fighting on another front, with intensified air strikes and troops on the ground in Lebanon against Hamas ally Hezbollah.
“I hope it will lead to the end of the war, the return of the hostages, and for quieter days,” Dolev said.
The October 7 attack 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.
Militants took 251 people hostage during the attack. Ninety-seven remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
The war triggered an Israeli military retaliation that has killed at least 42,500 people in Gaza, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN has acknowledged as reliable.
As the military targeted Hamas fighters and leaders while searching for any sign of Sinwar, the war reduced large parts of the Palestinian territory to rubble.
Israeli commanders believed Sinwar hid in the maze of tunnels Hamas built beneath Gaza, while Israeli media had reported he was likely to be surrounded by hostages.
But when the Hamas chief was finally cornered and killed by the Israeli army, he was above ground with just two other fighters and no captives in sight, the military said.
Following the announcement of Sinwar’s death, Israelis along with leaders from across the West called on Israel to seize the moment to leverage a deal to release the remaining captives.
“To be honest, I only thought about the hostages, whether this will help move any deal forward, if there will now be a way to bring them back, or if, on the contrary, this is pushing a deal further away,” said Sharon Sborovsky, 31, from Tel Aviv.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met earlier Friday to discuss the aftermath of Sinwar’s death, including the fate of the hostages.
A statement released by the president’s office said that “a significant window of opportunity opened — including the promotion of the return of the hostages and the elimination of Hamas.”
Later in the day, Hamas said it had no plans to release the hostages until Israel ends its “aggression against our people in Gaza,” withdraws from the territory and frees jailed Palestinians.
And while the death of Sinwar marked a milestone in the war, many Israelis were not yet ready to celebrate.
“It is nice to have killed the leader of Hamas,” said Yonatan, a 34-year-old resident of Haifa.
“But we hope that all the hostages will come back, then we can start the party.”
Relief, anxiety in Israel after Sinwar’s killing
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Relief, anxiety in Israel after Sinwar’s killing
- “It’s like closing the circle, bringing things full circle,” Dolev, a 29-year-old Tel Aviv resident, told AFP
- “To be honest, I only thought about the hostages, whether this will help move any deal forward, if there will now be a way to bring them back,” said Sharon Sborovsky
Moscow exhibits Aisha Qaddafi’s art, painted in the slain Libyan leader’s honor
- "I can tell you that these pictures are painted not with my hand but with my heart"
MOSCOW: A Russian state museum is mounting an exhibit of artwork by the daughter of slain Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, dedicated to her father’s memory.
Aisha Qaddafi, 47, is the fifth child and only biological daughter of the leader who ruled the country from 1969 until he was captured and killed in 2011 by rebels during the NATO-backed uprising that toppled him.
On Friday, the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow opened a six-week exhibit of dozens of her artworks, including a painting of a crowd hovering over the corpses of her father and her brother, who was killed alongside him.
The painting shows members of the crowd using smartphones to snap pictures of the bodies.
“Today, I show these works for the first time to honor my father and my brother on the anniversary of their deaths,” she said ahead of the opening.
“I can tell you that these pictures are painted not with my hand but with my heart.”
Aisha Qaddafi fled Libya during the uprising in 2011.
The family says her husband and two of her children were killed in NATO airstrikes and bombings of the Qaddafi compound in Tripoli.
She gave birth to her fourth child in Algeria and settled in Oman.
Igor Spivak, the chairman of the Russian Mideast Society, who organized the exhibit with support from Russia’s Foreign Ministry and other bodies, said he had proposed the exhibition to her in Oman, and she had quickly agreed.
“She knows that the people in Russia love her, love her father and want to see her art in Russia.”
Iraqi strikes kill senior Daesh leader
- Iraq’s Joint Operations Command had previously said in a statement that F-16 warplanes carried out strikes on Oct.14 in Kirkuk province that killed four militants, “one of them an important leader”
Iraqi airstrikes killed a senior Daesh leader and three other militants, the US military announced on Friday, saying the strikes were enabled by intelligence from the international anti-terror coalition.
“Iraqi security forces conducted precision airstrikes in northeastern Iraq on Oct. 14 that killed four members of the terrorist organization Daesh, including a senior leader,” US Central Command, or CENTCOM, said in a statement on social media.
“The Iraqi-led strikes were conducted to disrupt and degrade Daesh attack networks in Iraq and were enabled by technical support and intelligence from coalition forces,” CENTCOM said.
It said the deceased leader was the group’s most senior official in northern Iraq, identifying him as Shahadhah Allawi Salih Ulaywi Al-Bajjari and saying he was also known as Abu Issa.
BACKGROUND
The US has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the coalition, which Washington and Baghdad announced last month will end its decade-long military mission in Iraq within a year.
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command had previously said in a statement that F-16 warplanes carried out strikes on Oct.14 in Kirkuk province that killed four militants, “one of them an important leader.”
The strikes came after US and Iraqi forces conducted a joint operation in late August that CENTCOM said killed 14 Daesh members, among them four leaders.
The US has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the coalition, which Washington and Baghdad announced last month will end its decade-long military mission in Iraq within a year.
The announcement followed months of talks between the US and Iraq on the future of the coalition, which was established in 2014 to help local forces retake swathes of territory seized by the extremists there and in neighboring Syria.
The coalition will continue its military operation in Syria, with international troops permitted to support anti-jihadist operations there from Iraq until September 2026.
Daesh was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but terrorists continue to operate in remote desert areas although they no longer control territory.
Sinwar’s death brings no respite for Gazans
- Civilians remain trapped, hungry, and sick, often under heavy bombardment: UNRWA chief
GAZA CITY: The killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar brought no respite for Palestinians in Gaza, as Israeli airstrikes and shelling continued unabated in the territory already devastated by more than a year of war.
Raids continued in the besieged enclave in the hours after Israel announced the death of the militant leader they have long accused of masterminding the Oct. 7 attack last year — a key war aim for Israel.
Following a strike at dawn, Gaza’s civil defense agency said rescuers recovered the bodies of three Palestinian children from the rubble of their home in the north of the territory.
“We always thought that when this moment arrived, the war would end and our lives would return to normal,” said Jemaa Abou Mendi, a 21-year-old Gaza resident.
NUMBER
42,500
Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s Gaza onslaught.
“But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is quite the opposite. The war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated.”
Large swaths of northern Gaza remained under siege by Israeli forces, with road closures preventing the delivery of supplies to the area — despite warnings from the United States that failure to end the blockade could trigger a reduction in arms deliveries to Israel.
“While we hear that delivery of aid will increase, people in Gaza are not feeling any difference,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X.
“They continue to be trapped, hungry, and sick, often under heavy bombardment.”
As news of the death of Sinwar sunk in, many in Gaza saw little reason for the Israeli army to press on with its war in the territory.
“If Sinwar’s assassination was one of the objectives of this war, well, today they have killed Yahya Sinwar,” said Mustafa Al-Zaeem, a 47-year-old resident from the Rimal neighborhood in western Gaza City.
“Enough death, enough hunger, enough siege. Enough thirst and starvation, enough bodies and blood.”
Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas and bring back the hostages has killed 42,500 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry in the territory, which the UN considers reliable.
US President Joe Biden said on Friday he impressed upon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a conversation to “also make this moment an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas.”
Pressure has also been mounting in Israel to leverage the killing of Sinwar into a tangible plan to secure the release of the remaining hostages held captive in Gaza.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Netanyahu met on Friday to discuss the aftermath of Sinwar’s death, including the hostages.
A statement released by the presidency said that “a significant window of opportunity opened — including the promotion of the return of the hostages and the elimination of Hamas.”
Late on Thursday, Netanyahu vowed that those who helped free the hostages in Gaza would be spared.
“Whoever lays down his weapon and returns our hostages — we will allow him to go on living,” he said.
But in Gaza, some remained skeptical over the fate of the hostages and what any deal would entail for their future.
“Today, Israel is lost and will be searching for the hostages,” said Zaeem.
Others saw little reason to trust Netanyahu and only feared more war.
“What we see is that Netanyahu’s focus is on Gaza — on killing, destruction, and eradication, as the bombings and massacres continue across Gaza,” said Mahmoud Obeid, 42, from northern Gaza.
“What we fear most is the continuation of this cursed war.”
PLO mourns death of Hamas chief Sinwar
- “The Executive Committee of the PLO expresses its condolences to the Palestinian people and all national factions,” a statement said
- The PLO accused Israel of committing “massacres and genocide” against Palestinians
RAMALLAH: The Palestine Liberation Organization, seen internationally as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, expressed its condolences on Friday on the “martyrdom” of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar and called for unity among all Palestinian factions.
“The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) expresses its condolences to the Palestinian people and all national factions on the martyrdom of the great national leader Yahya Sinwar, head of the political bureau of Hamas,” a statement by the committee said.
The PLO accused Israel of committing “massacres and genocide” against Palestinians and called for all Palestinian factions to stand united, especially after the death of Sinwar.
The PLO called for a united struggle against Israel for the “full reclaiming of our rights, including the right of return, the end of the occupation, and the establishment of our Palestinian state on all our occupied territories based on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its eternal capital,” the statement said.
In a separate statement, Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, said Israel’s policy of “killing and terrorism will not succeed in breaking the will of our people to achieve their legitimate national rights to freedom and independence.”
Tunisian MPs seek to limit the central bank’s power to set interest rates
- The bill proposes that the bank will not be allowed to sign agreements with foreign oversight authorities without the president’s approval
TUNIS: Tunisia’s central bank will no longer have the exclusive power to adjust interest rates or foreign exchange policy and must only take such action in consultation with the government, but it will be allowed to finance the treasury, a bill proposed by lawmakers showed on Friday.
The step is the latest move that will ultimately undermine the central bank’s independence after continuous criticism by President Kais Saied, who said the bank should not be a state within a state.
The potential significant change in the central bank law comes as public finances face a severe crisis.
The country has been unable to secure Western funding since Saied seized nearly all power in 2021, ruling by decree, in a move the opposition has called a coup.
Twenty-seven lawmakers warned that Tunisia would go bankrupt if the bank law were not changed.
They said that the current law, adopted in 2016, which does not allow the central bank to make loans to the public treasury or direct bond purchases, has led to enormous losses for the state estimated at $36.6 billion.
The bill also proposes that the bank will not be allowed to sign agreements with foreign oversight authorities without the president’s approval.
Saied last year rejected the independence of the central bank, saying it should lend directly to the state treasury to avoid costly loans through banks.
In January, the government asked the central bank to provide $2.25 billion of direct funding to the treasury to fill a budget deficit.
Former central bank governor Marouan Abassi has warned that buying treasury bonds had risks, including upward inflation pressure and a drop in the value of Tunisia’s currency.
Earlier this year, Saied replaced Abassi with Zouhair Nouri.
Since 2016, the central bank has had absolute power to control monetary policy, reserves, and gold.
However, the proposed bill showed that the central bank could adjust interest rates, gold-related operations, and exchanges in consultation with the government.
Under the bill, the central bank will be allowed to buy government bonds from banks and lend up to 3 percent of GDP directly to the treasury with maturities exceeding five years.
Financial sources said the move would likely pave the way for a new government request for the central bank to provide up to $2.6 billion in direct facilities and loans to the treasury.
