Transformations in life—and in politics—are very rare. And yet there’s a persistent and perhaps understandable temptation to turn breathless headlines into potentially transformative trend lines. There’s no better example than the recent death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, which has been described as a “watershed,” a “game-changer,” and a “dramatic turning point.”
Looking back over the past year, it’s hard to see now how Israel’s killing of the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack has fundamentally altered the trajectory of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. Two leaders have defined that trajectory—Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One is now gone. But there’s no indication that whoever replaces Sinwar will have the legitimacy, willingness, or capacity to pursue a more de-escalatory, let alone conciliatory, approach.
The other decision-maker—Netanyahu—is sending clear signals that he is bent on doubling down, not backing down from his determination to destroy the remnants of Hamas’s organized military structure and keep up the fight for his own political reasons. Any serious effort to end the conflict in Gaza would require Israel and Hamas to conclude that the gain of de-escalation would outweigh the pain.
Sadly, the only urgency seems to exist in the Biden administration, whose clock is understandably ticking much faster than that of either Israel or Hamas.
Meanwhile, events farther north, in Lebanon, and Israel’s anticipated strike against Iran are likely to complicate the focus on Gaza. Sinwar’s demise may open some possibilities for change in the enclave; but there’s no indication that opportunity is just around the corner, or that the Biden administration has a plan.
Nor does it have the leverage, three weeks before what may be the most consequential presidential elections in U.S. history, to gain the release of hostages or de-escalate the war in Gaza.
Hamas’s Calculations
Right now, not even Pythia, the famed oracle at Delphi, reading the best of goat entrails, could predict with any authority who or what might replace Sinwar, or how Hamas will be reorganized and led in the wake of his passing.
The assassination of the group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in July and the relatively quick announcement after by Hamas’s al-Shura Council, appointing Sinwar as top Hamas leader, suggest that Hamas has a stake in demonstrating proof of life quickly. But Haniyeh was still one of the “hotel guys”—Sinwar’s derogatory term for the external leadership, which lived a life of relative luxury in Doha, Qatar, while those inside Gaza did the fighting and the dying.
The loss of Sinwar presents a much more critical loss to the organization. Israel had succeeded in eliminating most of the senior cadre, including Mohammed Deif, Saleh al-Arouri, and Marwan Issa. Surviving members of the upper ranks are either on the run or lack the legitimacy to make big decisions. Given Sinwar’s centrality to the Oct. 7 attacks, his leadership in guiding the war over the past year, and his obsession with secrecy, it is likely that he alone had access to certain information, including the location of hostages.
There are several reports that Sinwar’s younger brother—Mohammed, who rose quickly through the ranks of the al-Qassam Brigades—might replace him. The younger Sinwar reportedly spent time in Israeli jails and far longer in a Palestinian Authority prison.
Other reports indicate that Sinwar’s deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, will emerge as the preeminent leader. Born in Gaza, Hayya has represented Sinwar in the cease-fire and hostage negotiations with Israel. He is believed to have close ties with Iran, Hamas’s most important patron, which would clearly give him an edge over other contenders in the leadership sweepstakes.
More than likely, the putative leadership will have two heads—one leading the organization inside Gaza and one representing it outside.
The issue of who will lead raises the central question of whether Hamas will take a significantly new direction in the aftermath of Sinwar’s passing. Not surprisingly, the early statements after Sinwar’s death were tough, reflecting no change in policy. “We are continuing Hamas’s path,” Hayya said from exile in Qatar, adding that the slain leader’s conditions for a cease-fire would not be compromised, including Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the return of Palestinian prisoners.
But in an interview with The Associated Press that was published in April, Hayya had asserted that Hamas might agree to a five-year truce with Israel, and said that the group would dissolve its military wing and become a political party if an independent Palestinian state were created along the 1967 borders.
There’s no doubt that Sinwar represented the most extreme views within the movement. If there were to be a change in direction, it would be tactical only in effort to regroup and rebuild. Hamas may be weakened as an organized military force, but it will remain the most powerful actor in the Gazan political scene, able to influence events there through cooptation and intimidation.
Had it been vulnerable to Israel’s assassination successes, Hamas would have disappeared long ago. Its popularity in Gaza has declined, but over the past 40 years, it has planted deep religious, social, and economic roots there. The absence of a plan for post conflict governance and security guarantees Hamas’s influence.
The Palestinian Authority is weak and corrupt. Israel’s likely presence in Gaza for months to come virtually assures a ready-made enemy that will distract Palestinians from Hamas’s own corruption and mismanagement. Under current circumstances, with Hamas still waiting to see if another Israeli strike against Iran might not set the region on fire, the prospects of Hamas being serious about negotiations seem dim. And Israel is unlikely to exchange hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for hostages, or to withdraw from Gaza.
Netanyahu’s Calculations
Netanyahu’s motives throughout the war have been a mixture of national security and political expediency. Israel had no choice but to respond forcefully to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack; Israel needed to debilitate the group and create conditions of safety for the residents of the communities bordering the Gaza Strip.
However, the intensity of the Israeli response and the prolonged assault on Gazan society also served Netanyahu’s political needs. The war allowed him to change the subject in at least three ways.
First, the war brought to an end the demonstrations over efforts by Netanyahu’s coalition to ram through a set of judicial changes that would have gutted the independence of the judiciary. With reservists being called up to fight and government services failing in a number of critical areas, the war concentrated Israeli minds on getting the society back on its feet.
Second, Hamas’s Oct. 7 successes raised the specter for Netanyahu of a commission of inquiry that would likely find him responsible for overseeing a policy of strengthening Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority. The fact that the government allowed tens of millions of dollars to flow to Hamas openly was bad enough; even worse, the existence of tunnels and massive stores of weapons in Gaza was no secret. Active fighting allowed Netanyahu to defer the question of accountability.
Third, had Hamas not attacked, Netanyahu’s trials for allegations of corruption would have remained as a Damoclean sword hanging over the prime minister. In a time of war, the corruption trials took a back seat.
With Sinwar dead, Netanyahu faces a choice that he has not been forced to make until now. On the one hand, pressure will grow within Israel for a deal to return the hostages being held by Hamas. The U.S. administration is likely to support such an effort, which is consistent with its diplomatic investment to date to try to arrange a cease-fire and hostage deal.
On the other hand, having not articulated an achievable goal, Netanyahu will be tempted to continue the war, to further degrade Hamas, and to hold on to Gaza. Such a stance will antagonize the United States and others, who want to see a plan in which Israel withdraws and allows for Gazans to rebuild their homes and their lives.
Sinwar’s death, thus, gives Netanyahu a political boost, but not much more. Hamas is still alive and fighting and launching rockets; Israel is not close to declaring a decisive victory that will bring the hostages home and provide security for the Israeli residents of the Gaza envelope to return home safely. The fighting in Gaza has taken on the character of a prolonged, low-burner insurgency or counterinsurgency that will continue to diminish Hamas’s capabilities, but at the price of Israeli and Palestinian lives.
Netanyahu is no closer now to considering an endgame involving Israeli withdrawal than he was before Sinwar’s death.
Iran and the Coming Storm
As the past year has tragically demonstrated, what happens in Gaza doesn’t stay in Gaza. Israel’s operations in Lebanon and the imminent Israeli attack against Iran in response to Tehran’s launch of 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 does not augur well for progress on a hostage or cease-fire deal in Gaza.
Some had hoped that the devastating attack on militant group Hezbollah and the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah would somehow break the axis of resistance, significantly weaken the link between Hezbollah and Lebanon, and convince the Hamas leadership that it was now fighting by itself. Nasrallah is dead, but Hezbollah is still alive and able to offer resistance both on the ground in southern Lebanon and by launching drones and rockets against Israel.
Netanyahu has no problem keeping up the fight in Lebanon as long as the Israeli military’s casualty rate is limited and there are no kidnappings of Israeli soldiers—a serious and real fear. The war against Hezbollah has much more support within the Israeli security establishment and public than does a continuation of the war in Gaza. The military effort to return roughly 63,000 Israelis—residents of the northern border communities—to their homes is also a politically compelling objective.
The elephant in the room today is the looming Israeli strike against Iran—and how Iran would respond. A spiraling tit for tat would likely prompt the Israelis to expand their target set, at a minimum, to include economic infrastructure. From there, it’s certainly possible to imagine a regional escalation, including Iranian attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure.
Iran says that it is not looking for major escalation. But it’s also not prepared to abandon its so-called ring of fire.
Is There a Pathway Out?
Without an achievable political goal and a clear sense of the conditions that would end the fighting, wars are acts of vengeance or revenge. They result in significant casualties, physical destruction, and human suffering, but they rarely solve the underlying problem. The Middle East—and the current war in Gaza—is a living laboratory that proves the futility of wars that lack a realistic and realizable political outcome. Assassinating leadership is not a substitute for a political objective.
In the wake of Sinwar’s passing, there is much public discussion about the opportunity that it affords to free hostages and de-escalate the war in Gaza. The enthusiasm is understandable, but the optimism is mystifying. One is hard-pressed to conclude that the current circumstances the Biden administration faces are pregnant with possibility. If the administration proved unwilling to exercise significant pressure until now to conclude a deal, it will be even less likely to do so just weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
Israel will do enough to minimally satisfy the humanitarian demands included in a recent letter from the U.S. secretaries of defense and state, and thus avoid any consequences for the slow delivery of aid. Indeed, at the same time that the administration was threatening consequences for the slow delivery of aid, it was deploying a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missile defense system to help defend Israel should Iran respond to an Israeli strike.
Realistically, Israel will accept no U.S. proposal that gives Hamas a sense of victory; thus, the original three-phased deal that offered Hamas hundreds of Palestinian prisoners is off the table. There are reports that a proposal for a limited release of hostages for a two week cease-fire is under discussion. This would be a tough lift. The U.S. might also offer a modified “all-for-all” proposal—that is, one where Hamas agrees to release all remaining hostages, alive and dead, and Israel agrees to a very extended cease-fire. In this deal, Israel gains the hostages; Hamas gains time to reorganize and rearm.
But for both Netanyahu and Hamas, this all-for-all variant is unlikely to work. Netanyahu wants to destroy Hamas as an organization and ensure that it doesn’t resurge; he will not want a deal that allows Hamas to rearm. Hamas wants Israel to withdraw, and will not accept an arrangement that does not guarantee that outcome and a return of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reportedly working on a broad comprehensive plan for stabilizing Gaza with an international force, the involvement of the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority, and a political horizon linked to a two-state solution. But at the moment, this set of ideas is an aspiration, if that.
Like some modern-day Gulliver, the Biden administration nears the end of its term entangled in conflicts between smaller powers whose interests conflict with its own, but which ensnare the administration with few options to untangle the mess. Boxed in by domestic politics, a critical presidential election, and a looming conflict between Israel and Iran, it’s hard to imagine in the weeks ahead diplomatic off-ramps or opportunities that might defuse a conflict unfolding on multiple fronts.
At best, the administration can try to manage, contain, deter, and perhaps work to prevent these conflicts from getting worse by year’s end. Serious diplomacy will have to wait for another day—and for regional leaders who see value in working with Washington, not against it, and who have calculated that for their own reasons, the time has come to de-escalate the conflicts and perhaps even make the hard choices necessary to solve them.
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