A post-Sinwar scenario: What's next for Hamas and Israel now? - opinion

On October 21, two Hamas sources revealed to the media that the idea of appointing a leader to succeed Yahya Sinwar, assassinated on October 16, had been ruled out, at least for now. 

The Hamas leadership, operating at arm’s length from Gaza in the Gulf state of Qatar, had decided that the organization would be run, at least until March 2025, by the five-man committee set up in August after the assassination of political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The committee, based in Doha, Qatar’s capital city, comprises Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashaal, Zaher Jabareen, Mohammed Darwish, and the political bureau’s secretary, whose identity remains anonymous for security reasons.

The internal dynamic of the Hamas organization had certainly been severely shaken, yet an informed source, well acquainted with its inner workings, struck an interesting note.

Interviewed by the Associated Press, Sadeq Abu Amer, head of the Turkey-based think tank Palestinian Dialogue Group, believed that the removal of Sinwar, whom he dubbed “one of the most prominent hawks within the movement,” was likely to lead to “the advancement of a trend or direction that can be described as dove[-like]”.

He indicated that with Sinwar out of the picture, a hostage-prisoner exchange deal had become practical politics.

Abu Amer was quick to discount any suggestion that Sinwar’s brother Mohammed, if he is still alive, could replace him as leader of Hamas. “Mohammed Sinwar is the head of the field battle,” he said, “but he will not be Sinwar’s heir as head of the political bureau.”

Although somewhat off the mark, as it has turned out, he believed that Hamas’s Qatar-based political leaders might decide to elect one of their number to head the organization. He identified the two front runners as al-Hayya and Mashaal. 

Al-Hayya, 63, was Sinwar’s deputy and headed the Hamas delegation in ceasefire negotiations. 

In an interview in April 2024, al-Hayya said Hamas was willing to agree a truce of at least five years with Israel, and that if an independent Palestinian state were created along 1967 borders, the group would dissolve its military wing and become a purely political party.

Mashaal, 68, served as the group’s political leader from 1996 to 2017. 

The subject of an assassination attempt in 1997, he now supports the forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad in the 13-year-old civil war still raging in Syria. 

Consequently, he is not on good terms with Iran, or indeed with Hezbollah. He has good relations with Turkey and Qatar.

Jabareen, once sentenced to a 35-year prison sentence for the deaths of two Israeli police officers at the Temple Mount, was released on a prisoner exchange. 

He headed the 2023 resumption of suicide bombings within Israel. Darwish, also known as Abu Omar Hassan, has been chairman of the Hamas Shura Council since October 2023.

FIRST REACTIONS to the news of Sinwar’s death on October 16 reflected hope in many quarters that a ceasefire in Gaza, and the return of the hostages, was a short step away. 

Such immediate expectations seemed to be quickly doused. The first public statement after Sinwar’s death, made by his Qatar-based deputy al-Hayya, was that there would be no hostage release without “the end of the aggression… and the withdrawal from Gaza.” 

A nuanced response 

Israel’s position immediately after Sinwar’s death was nuanced. The first reaction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was that the war was not over. “Evil has suffered a heavy blow,” he said, “but the task before us is not yet complete.”

Yet in a message issued via the media, Netanyahu offered Hamas terrorists free passage out of the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hostages. Anyone who laid down his arms and returned hostages, said Netanyahu, would be allowed to leave Gaza.

Could this formula provide the basis for a final hostage return deal? Possibly – provided Hamas’s new Qatar-based leadership committee is indeed that degree more pragmatic (more “dove-like” as Abu Amer put it) than its hawkish erstwhile leader. 

A reassessment of Hamas’s situation and prospects might persuade the leadership that repositioning the organization outside the Gaza Strip might be the most effective way to recoup and recover. 

Given the huge losses in manpower that Hamas has already sustained, it is certainly preferable to continue fighting inside Gaza to the last man.

This scenario, if played out, would not sit well with the aspirations of US President Joe Biden, Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the many other Western leaders who are so free with advice about how Israel should act. 

The accepted international view has been that Israel should de-escalate on all fronts, negotiate a hostage-prisoner swap in Gaza involving an Israeli ceasefire, stop its attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and the rest of Lebanon, and respond only minimally to Iran’s massive missile launch on Israel of October 1. 

As it turns out, Israel’s response, though far from minimal, was effectively targeted.

Netanyahu’s policy of slowly but surely eliminating the leadership of the Iran-supported terror armies in Gaza, Lebanon, and the rest of the axis of evil, while depleting their manpower and wearing them down, is clearly working. 

No chance of success 

The West’s continuous advocacy of unenforceable ceasefires, peace deals, and de-escalation would never have succeeded. 

Against jihadist enemies dedicated to its annihilation, any such appeasement by Israel would have served only to guarantee the continuation of the multi-directional existential threat.

In the strictly limited area of the war in Gaza, however, Sinwar’s elimination may have opened up a chink of hope. Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar is reported to have visited Cairo on October 20 to discuss a possible revival of hostage deal negotiations. 

Two days later, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel, where he reiterated his view that Israel should seek to exploit the advantage gained by Sinwar’s assassination and press on with negotiating a hostage deal. Netanyahu is reported to have concurred.

Blinken went on to Egypt, where reports suggest that discussions included the future administration and rebuilding of Gaza, which would include the establishment of an international force to oversee the process.

According to an October 19 report in The Wall Street Journal, Sinwar told Hamas negotiators in Qatar that if he were killed, Israel would offer concessions. 

On this, if on nothing else, he was apparently not wrong. On October 21, Israel’s TV Channel 12 claimed that Israel had recently indicated to the US that it was ready to make concessions previously not considered feasible. 

What such concessions might involve was not mentioned, but they could be based on Netanyahu’s free passage offer. 

If the report is true, their success might turn on how flexible Hamas’s reconstituted leadership might choose to be in the post-Sinwar era.

The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.