Israel’s foreign minister condemns UN chief for not welcoming Sinwar’s killing

In a post on X, the Israeli foreign minister accused the UN chief of “leading an extreme anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agenda”.

“Guterres did not welcome the elimination of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar, just as he refused to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation after the October 7th massacre,” he said. “We will continue to designate him as persona non grata and bar his entry to Israel.”

Israeli army said Sinwar was killed during an operation in southern Gaza on Wednesday.

Israel has recently reinforced its decision to declare Guterres persona non grata over what it described as a failure to condemn Iran’s missile attack and “antisemitic and anti-Israel conduct”. Katz said earlier in the month that he barred Guterres from entering Israel.

Israel has not only violated the sovereignty of Lebanon but also that of Iraq and Syria, killing many innocent people, Muhammad Shahid Amin Khan, world chairman of the International Human Rights Commission, said.

“Netanyahu is a war criminal… the US is facilitating [those attacks],” Khan added.

He urged the International Criminal Court to “act according to its charter”.

Senior United States officials have warned Israel that if it does not take “urgent and sustained actions” to allow more humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip, the US government may be forced to curtail its support for the top ally.

While the US is required under its own laws to suspend military assistance to a country if that country restricts the delivery of American-backed humanitarian aid, US President Joe Biden’s administration has so far refused to apply that rule to Israel, experts note.

So what is this week’s letter all about, how have stakeholders and experts responded, and what could come next?

Here’s what you need to know as advocates question US ‘threat’ to Israel over Gaza aid.

Wafa news agency is reporting a wave of Israeli air attacks overnight and this morning that killed a number of Palestinians across Gaza.

This is what the report said:

• Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported recovering bodies of children after a missile attack against a home on Nassr Street northwest of Gaza City.
• Two people were killed after being shot by Israeli forces in the Wadi al-Arayes area, southeast of Gaza City.
• Many people were wounded when Israeli warplanes struck a home near the Abu Mazen junction in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood.
• In central Gaza, 12-year-old Abdul Rahman al-Dalu succumbed to his wounds from severe burns sustained in a previous Israeli attack on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital four days ago.
• Overnight, Israeli air attacks hit a home in Shati refugee camp, resulting in a number of casualties.
• Israeli naval forces opened fire on western areas of the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
  

  

Al Jazeera’s Moath al-Kahlout, reporting from the Jabalia refugee camp, says the Israeli army bombed a school in the centre of the camp.

Reporting from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya – close to the camp – as casualties arrived, he said the vast majority of the injured were children.

Ambulances were seen arriving at the scene as well as a horse cart, carrying a wounded person.

The school was full of displaced Palestinians, our correspondent said, reporting from the extremely crowded hospital as more casualties arrived.

 

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Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned from Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu’s message is the war will go on despite Sinwar’s assassination. We even heard opposition leader Gantz say Israel will remain in Gaza for many years.

So there aren’t signals about ending the war, which is a message some tried to offer after Sinwar’s killing.

We have not heard from Hamas on who will replace Sinwar, who will be able to lead negotiations and deliver a deal with Israel.

Different reactions to Sinwar’s assassination were like watching parallel universes. You saw jubilation among Israelis at the killing of somebody they have placed at the centre of their rage for the October 7 attack.

Palestinians saw a fighter battling until the very end. They saw someone not in a tunnel, not assassinated while hiding. But they’re also concerned about what comes next. The fear in Gaza is this circle of hell is never-ending.

Israel’s military said its air force carried out an estimated 150 attacks on sites in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon on Thursday, including munitions warehouses, rocket launch sites, and sniper and observation posts.

During the night, “the combat team” of Israel’s Givati Brigade joined forces with Division 162 in the siege and ground offensive against Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the territory, the military said. Attacks by the air force on Thursday in Jabalia had “eliminated dozens of terrorists”, the military added.

An estimated 400,000 Palestinians have been trapped by the Israeli military’s two-week-long siege of the north of the Strip, where supplies of food, water and medicine have not entered and rescue workers are unable to recover the bodies of people killed in the streets and trapped under the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel.

The entire Gaza Strip remains at high risk of famine, according to a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

• The report says 96 percent of Gaza’s population, or two million people, are suffering from severe acute food insecurity, a situation that is expected to persist.
  About 745,000 people, or a third of the population, are in Phase 4, experiencing emergency levels of food insecurity and unable to meet minimum food needs.
• At least 22 percent of the population, almost half a million people, are in IPC Phase 5, which means they face catastrophic food shortages, starvation and extremely critical acute malnutrition.

The Israeli army has claimed it has killed Mohammad Hussein Ramal, a Hezbollah commander, in Taybeh, southern Lebanon, in an air strike.

It also said it located and destroyed rocket launchers primed to attack northern Israel, while its troops uncovered Hezbollah weapons in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli Air Force also attacked a cell it said was preparing to fire an antitank missile at Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon.

EU leaders have called for an immediate end to the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

The leaders also discussed a plan presented by Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, which he says will bring an end to the war with Russia.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports from the Belgian capital:

 

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Britain’s Prime Minister said slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was the “mastermind behind the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust”, referring to the October 7 attacks on southern Israel.

“Today my thoughts are with the families of those victims. The UK will not mourn his death,” Keir Starmer said.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Sinwar’s killing by Israeli forces on Thursday paved the way for a “new phase” of the conflict.

“With the death of Yahya Sinwar, the person principally responsible for the October 7 attacks no longer exists,” she said.

“I am convinced that a new phase should be launched: it is time for all the hostages to be released, for a ceasefire to be immediately proclaimed and for the reconstruction of Gaza to begin,” she added.

General Michael Erik Kurilla, the head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), has lauded Israel’s military for its claimed killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

In a post on social media, the CENTCOM commander congratulated the Israeli military and said US support “remains ironclad”.

“Those who choose the path of terrorism should expect the same fate as Sinwar,” Kurilla added.

About 15 rockets have been fired from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel in recent hours, according to the Israeli military.

Rocket sirens were activated in the coastal city of Acre and the surrounding communities in the northwest of Israel. Some of the rockets were intercepted, while others landed in Israel, according to the military.

The Israeli air force also intercepted an unmanned aerial vehicle off the coast of northern Israel overnight, according to the announcement.

There have been no reports of injuries or damage in either incident.

Hezbollah has announced it will “transition to a new and escalating phase in the confrontation with Israel”, saying the nature of the escalation will become clear in the coming days.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reports that 45 people were killed and 179 injured in attacks across the country on Thursday.

The latest casualties bring the overall death toll in Lebanon to 2,412 people killed and 11,267 wounded since fighting broke out between Hezbollah and Israel one year ago.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Hezbollah in Lebanon has announced it will “transition to a new and escalating phase in the confrontation with Israel”, which will become clear in the coming days.
• Iran’s mission to the UN said the final moments of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar will be a model for resistance and the “spirit of resistance will be strengthened”, following his killing by Israeli forces.
• The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has described Sinwar as a “terrorist”, saying the slain Hamas leader was “an obstacle to an urgently needed ceasefire”.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in the wake of Sinwar’s death, emphasising the need for a ceasefire.
• The World Health Organization has accused Israel of barring medical specialists from entering Gaza to support clinics in the besieged enclave.

Elijah Magnier, a military and political analyst, said the Israeli and US characterisation of how Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was reportedly killed is far from the reality.

“It is not at all an intelligence operation nor a targeted assassination,” Magnier told Al Jazeera.

“It’s a clash between three people, three militants who were in a location and opened fire against soldiers who are invading Rafah,” Magnier said.

Israeli forces “opened fire from their tank, destroying the location and this is how, the next day, they found Sinwar with another commander in a house above the ground and not in tunnels,” he said.

“Everybody is claiming victory, quoting intelligence collaboration … Shin Bet from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Kamala Harris saying we have been collaborating to make sure that we reach out and arrest or bring to justice all of the Hamas leaders, which has nothing to do with the reality of the event on the ground,” he added.

Roxane Farmanfarmaian, a lecturer on international relations of the Middle East at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera that some of the possible leaders who might take Yahya Sinwar’s place are more “hardline” than he was.

Others include more pragmatic figures such as Khaled Meshaal, the former head of Hamas’s political directorate, who is more of a “negotiation expert”, Farmanfarmaian said.

Listen to Farmanfarmaian’s comments in full below:

 

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has accused Israel of barring medical specialists from entering Gaza to support clinics in the besieged enclave, according to German news agency DPA.

The WHO said eight organisations and more than 50 specialist personnel have been affected by Israel’s blockade since August. The specialists, who intended to give various medical services to patients and psychological support to healthcare workers, were blocked from working in medical facilities including the European Gaza Hospital and the Nasser Hospital.

Israeli authorities have denied two medical organisations, Glia and US nonprofit the Palestinian American Medical Association, from entering Gaza, the groups said this week.

This marks the first instance in which Israel has denied entire aid organisations access to Gaza, according to the WHO.

The Israeli military has carried out raids in the occupied West Bank in recent hours, according to local media reports. They include:

• The city of Qalqilya has been stormed and two men have been arrested
• The city of Tubas has been stormed, with Palestinian groups targeting Israeli forces with explosive devices and bullets
• The village of Husan, west of Bethlehem, has been stormed

Translation: An explosive device was detonated at the occupation army during the storming of the city of Tubas.

Israel bombed a UN-run school in Jabalia, northern Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 28 people.

It is part of a major Israeli military operation in the north of the Strip that has blocked the entry of food, medical and humanitarian supplies since October 5.

Al Jazeera’s Michael Appel reports:

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Yahya Sinwar was Israel’s most-wanted man.

After a yearlong hunt, the Israeli military said it killed the Hamas leader who is accused of masterminding the October 7 attack on Israel.

Israel said Sinwar was killed in a chance encounter with its forces in southern Gaza on Thursday.

The US secretary of state discussed Israel’s claimed killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in separate phone calls on Thursday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

Blinken also discussed post-conflict Gaza with his Saudi and Qatari counterparts, stressing the importance that “Hamas does not remain in power” in the Palestinian enclave, the US State Department said.

Blinken thanked the Saudi foreign minister for his role in promoting “regional peace and stability”, and the Qatari prime minister for his country’s “critical role in mediation efforts and work toward lasting peace in the region”.

Here are a few highlights from the pieces we’ve published about the war in Lebanon and Gaza over the past day:

• Watch: Israel says killed ‘most wanted man’ Hamas’s Sinwar
• News: World reacts to Israel claims Hamas leader Sinwar killed
• News: US hails Israeli announcement of killing Sinwar, calls for Gaza ‘day after’
• Explainer: Advocates question US ‘threat’ to Israel over Gaza aid – What to know

And there’s plenty more here.

Hours after Israel said it had confirmed the assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Palestinian-American journalist Said Arikat was in the US State Department briefing room in Washington.

What does Sinwar’s death mean for the future of Hamas and Gaza – and how could Sinwar’s death change the rhetoric coming from the podium?

Listen to Al Jazeera’s The Take podcast:

The EU’s foreign policy chief has described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as “an obstacle to an urgently needed ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages”.

“Yahya Sinwar was a terrorist, listed by the EU, responsible for the heinous 7/10 attack,” Josep Borrell wrote on X.

“There must be an end to violence, liberation of hostages [and] stop to the suffering of Palestinians,” Borrell added.

Israeli forces reportedly assassinated Sinwar in southern Gaza during an operation on Wednesday. Hamas is yet to comment on his alleged killing.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations said the final moments of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar will be a model for resistance to Israel.

“When Muslims look up to the Martyr Sinwar standing on the battlefield – in combat attire and out in the open, not in a hideout, facing the enemy – the spirit of resistance will be strengthened,” the mission wrote in a post on X.

“He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forward his path towards the liberation of Palestine,” the mission said.

“As long as occupation and aggression exist, resistance will endure, for the martyr remains alive and a source of inspiration,” it added.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The Israeli army says its forces killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in an operation in southern Gaza on Wednesday. Hamas has not commented on Sinwar’s alleged death.
• The Israeli military has released a video purporting to show Sinwar in his last moments.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Sinwar’s killing is “not the end of the war in Gaza”, but “the beginning of the end”, as he and US President Biden said there is now an opportunity to secure the release of captives held in the enclave.
• Israel’s assault on Gaza continues, with at least 28 Palestinians killed and 160 wounded in an attack on a UN school sheltering displaced people in northern Jabalia.
• At least two people have been killed and nine injured in Yammoune village in the Baalbek region as Israel’s assault on Lebanon continues, while Israel’s army has announced the death of five soldiers in the country’s south.

Hello, and thank you for joining our live coverage of the conflict across the Middle East, including Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, as well as rising tensions with Iran.

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