Yahya Sinwar's killing should force Hamas to change

A billboard of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on display in Palestine Square, Tehran, on Saturday. EPA

One common feature of revolutionary movements, whether they are underground or overground, is the importance of the animating leader. Hamas just lost one in Yahya Sinwar, when he was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza on Wednesday.

The group has lost leaders before, and it almost has a tradition of imperturbable endurance after such strikes. These leaders have ranged from the spiritual to the political and obviously the military. But Sinwar’s killing on the battlefield has historic implications that are embedded in who he was and his life story.

It is clear that Israel’s baseline war goal at this time is to hollow out the axis of groups that it has battled, having failed to deliver the rights of Palestinians over many decades. The levelling of much of Gaza and the brutal assault on its residents are ruthless outcomes of this. All that has happened since the pager attacks on the 2,000-odd Lebanese people, including Hezbollah associates, is another.

Where it ends is a different question, but clearly the death of Sinwar is a gateway of sorts to that point.

So many of the leaders who mattered the most across various Palestinian movements either were, or are, in their late fifties and sixties. Sinwar was 61. His one-time fellow prisoner Marwan Barghouti is 65. Mohammed Deif, the assassinated leader of Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, was 59. Mohammed Dahlan, the exiled Fatah dissident, is 63.

Gaza residents doubt Sinwar's death will end the war

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The Sinwar-orchestrated battle that the world has witnessed is a phase that has passed

Sinwar had a fixed point of grievance. That was his home, near what is now the expanding Israeli city of Ashkelon, from which his parents were driven even before he was born. The two decades spent in prison grafted a hardness that became his very core. The agenda he pursued was one of return underpinned by his social and religious values.

One of his contributions to Hamas was the enforcement of discipline that often included an unflinching retribution against traitors and dissenters. It was this ruthlessness that seemingly endured through all the days and nights of bombing and shooting in Gaza over the past year.

He was still going around inspecting the hostages taken from Israel on October 7 last year, following the bloody assault he masterminded. Having gained his own release through a hostage deal in 2011 – in exchange for an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit – Sinwar knew how fundamental this aspect was to the current conflict.

Historians will be left to argue over whether he understood that his tactic to take hostages backfired. Mr Netanyahu seems to have cast off any consideration for Israelis getting killed on the battlefield, which had been such a powerful factor since his country’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

We are still seeing the results of that step change for Israel today.

One of the developments of this war has been polling that shows that trust in Hamas has, in fact, fallen in Gaza as the suffering has grown. Yet, in what seems to be an act of solidarity, as well as the reaction to Israel’s incursions and rising settler impunity, the movement is polling higher in the West Bank.

The military threat posed by Hamas has certainly been degraded. But the cost to Israel has been significant, too, including to its economy and its reputation in the Arab world, the West and elsewhere.

That is where the dynamics after Sinwar’s death are bound to play out.

A person the Israeli army says is Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in the Tal Al Sultan area in Rafah, southern Gaza. Reuters

Israel's Chief of the General Staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, left, and the head of the Israeli Security Agency Ronen Bar, visiting what the Israeli army says is the location where Sinwar was killed. AFP

Israeli security forces stand guard outside the National Centre of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv on October 17. AFP

People dance and wave Israeli national flags as they celebrate the news of the death of Sinwar, in the Israeli costal city of Netanya, on October 17. AFP

US Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks about the killing of Sinwar, at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. AP

A demonstrator holds a sign about the killing of Sinwar during a protest calling for a ceasefire deal and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas, on October 17 in Tel Aviv, Israel. AP

An Israeli soldier gives out food to a person after Israeli military said it may have killed Sinwar, at a checkpoint in Sderot, Israel. Reuters

A photo of Sinwar is displayed on a TV screen at a barbershop in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, following news of his death. AP

A split in Hamas into revolutionary factions is not something that will be easily avoided. There are still members of Sinwar’s generation who are set to have their time. With the world demanding the recognition of Palestine in a way that was unimaginable two years ago, some of these men will be tasked with keeping their movement alive.

They face an agenda on the Israeli side that gets some attention but not enough. Those who are pushing for a greater Israel know that the hollowing out of the threat from Iran-backed groups across the region, as well as from Tehran’s missile arsenals, provides an opening for them.

None of this will happen quickly. The Sinwar-orchestrated battle that the world has witnessed, not just over the past year but steadily since his release from prison, is a phase that has passed. It may have led to a new corner for the Palestinians, the Israelis and the Levant overall. Hamas faces challenges within that changed landscape.

It is not just a matter of the group replacing its leader. The spiritual, political and military agendas will necessarily have to find a new balance. In a way, that was the decisive outcome of each time a leader was killed. But what is more fluid this time is what the struggle now represents.

The Palestinian people remain stuck below a threshold that has defied a political and diplomatic resolution for nearly 80 years. Sinwar, like his peers in their sixties, had a vision for how to get over that ledge. Hamas must now change with the times or face the reality that time has moved.

New faces will come forward to take leadership positions, but unlike Sinwar they will need to ensure that their vision fits with the changing times, not the other way round.