Israel and Hamas express resistance to ending Gaza war…

JERUSALEM (AP) – Hamas confirmed Friday that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and reiterated its stance that the hostages the militant group took from Israel a year ago will not be released. until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

The group’s firm stance rejected a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier that his country’s army would continue fighting until the hostages were freed and would remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearm

The conflicting positions indicate continued deep resistance on both sides to ending the war, even as President Joe Biden and other world leaders press the case that Sinwar’s death is a turning point that should use to unlock stalled ceasefire negotiations.

The clash comes as Israel’s war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Hamas ally, has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said on Friday it planned to launch a new phase of combat by sending more guided missiles and explosive drones into Israel. The militant group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed late last month in an Israeli airstrike, and Israel sent ground troops to Lebanon earlier this month.

Sinwar, the former Hamas leader, died “facing the occupying army until the last moment of his life,” said his Qatar-based deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, who represented Hamas during several rounds of ceasefire negotiations. Hamas will not return any of the hostages, al-Hayya said, “before the end of the aggression in Gaza and the withdrawal from Gaza.”

Hamas hailed Sinwar in a statement, calling him a hero for “not retreating, brandishing his weapon, facing and confronting the occupying army at the head of the ranks.”

The statement appeared to refer to a video the Israeli military circulated of Sinwar’s apparent final moments in which a man sits in a chair in a badly damaged building, badly injured and covered in dust. In the video, the man raises his hand and throws a stick at an approaching Israeli drone.

Sinwar was the chief architect of the Hamas attack on Israel last year that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, but say more than half of the dead are women and children.

The war has destroyed large swathes of Gaza, displacing around 90 percent of its population of 2.3 million people and leaving them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.

Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and could change the dynamics of the Gaza war even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country.

Hezbollah has fired rockets at Israel almost every day since the war between Israel and Hamas began, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in the north of the country. More than 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground offensive.

Iran, which also supports Hamas, on Friday hailed Sinwar as a martyr who can inspire others to challenge Israel.

“We, and many others around the world, salute their selfless struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on social media platform X. “The martyrs live forever, and the cause for the liberation of Palestine from occupation is more alive than ever.”

Israel is committed to politically destroying Hamas in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a military priority. But Netanyahu said in a speech announcing the killing Thursday night that “our war is not over yet.”

Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted Gaza residents expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sinwar’s death on Friday provided “an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a lasting ceasefire” and suggested the US could play a role in helping stabilize Gaza in the future . “We hope that countries in the region will step forward,” Austin told a NATO meeting in Brussels.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, meeting with her counterpart in Lebanon, said European countries are working for a “sustainable ceasefire” both in that country and in Gaza. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said “a diplomatic solution should overcome” the fighting.

But a day after Biden called Sinwar’s death “an opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power,” he acknowledged the difficulty of forging a ceasefire there, saying it might be easier to negotiate the cessation of fighting in Gaza. Lebanon.

“It’s going to be more difficult in Gaza,” Biden told reporters Friday after meeting European leaders in Berlin.

A White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, said it was “too early” to assess who Hamas “might anoint as Sinwar’s successor and what they may be willing to pursue with that person.”

In Israel, the families of the hostages still held in Gaza demanded that the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring their loved ones home. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 30 of whom, according to Israel, are dead.

“We are at a turning point where the goals set for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages,” said Ronen Neutra, father of Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra, in a video statement. “Sinwar, who was described as a major obstacle to a deal, is no longer alive.”

Netanyahu planned to call a special meeting on Friday to discuss the hostage negotiations, an Israeli official with knowledge of the negotiations said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.

Israel’s military said on Friday it allowed 30 trucks carrying food, water, medical supplies and other supplies into northern Gaza as the country faces US pressure to increase aid. There was no immediate confirmation from the UN that aid had arrived and was being distributed in the north.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah issued a statement early Friday saying its fighters have used new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones against Israel for the first time in recent days.

The statement appeared to refer to an explosives-laden drone that evaded Israel’s multi-layered air defense system and crashed into a canteen at a military training camp deep in Israel last Sunday, killing four soldiers and injuring dozens. The group announced earlier this week that it fired a new type of missile called the Qader 2 toward the suburbs of Tel Aviv.

Israel’s military said on Friday it would activate an additional reserve brigade in the north of its country to support troops fighting in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s health ministry said six people were killed in the past 24 hours of fighting, bringing the death toll for the past year to 2,418, a quarter of whom were women and children.

On Friday, Israel said its forces killed two militants who crossed into Israeli territory south of the Dead Sea from neighboring Jordan. Such infiltrations are relatively rare, especially since Israel has increased border security since the October 2023 attack by Hamas.

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Sewell reported from Beirut. Associated Press reporters Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Jon Gambrell in Jerusalem and Josh Boak in Berlin contributed to this story.