Does the death of Yahya Sinwar really change anything?

The death last week of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the world’s most wanted terrorist, has unleashed a flood of new questions about the state of the war in Gaza, Israel’s goals and the overall strategy of the Biden administration.

Where is Hamas going now that its top leader has been removed from the council? Will the Israeli government end operations, and if so, what will the so-called “day after” look like? And will President Joe Biden now have a chance to end the war before he retires in three months?

In Washington, Sinwar’s disappearance is a godsend for two reasons. First, since the lifelong Hamas operative was responsible for the most barbaric attack in Israel’s history, taking him out is the ultimate act of justice. Second, Sinwar’s departure could theoretically boost the prospects for a diplomatic process between Israel and Hamas that has been dead since the summer. That’s certainly what the Biden administration is hoping for.

“I think their withdrawal from the battlefield represents an opportunity to find a way forward that brings the hostages home, ends the war, brings us to the day after,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to the Middle East for the eleventh time since the October 7 attacks, aiming to inject some momentum into the moribund ceasefire talks.

Hope and optimism are understandable. No one wants the war to end as much as the roughly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza whose lives have been disrupted, or the families of the remaining hostages still in Hamas’s hands. The images that have come out of Gaza (and now Lebanon) over the past year are as disturbing as they are heartbreaking; an agreement that would stop the killing and allow the United States to distance itself from this conflict is more than tempting.

Unfortunately, the fundamentals of war have not changed. The death of the Palestinian militant is a dramatic moment for Israelis. But it is also a short-term achievement, especially given that Israel is led by a government that would rather advance militarily than sign a deal that would leave Hamas with influence in Gaza. As evil and troublesome as Sinwar was, he was only a man. There are many other obstacles to a deal, any of which could turn Blinken’s latest trip to the region into another diplomatic failure.

A big question mark right now is who will be Sinwar’s replacement. There are several possibilities, including former Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal, Sinwar’s deputy Khalil al-Hayya, and Sinwar’s younger brother Mohammed.

More important than the individual, however, is whether the group’s central position on the war will soften. Although we are in the early days since Sinwar’s death, the evidence so far suggests that Hamas will not. Al-Hayya recently reiterated Hamas’ main demand: If Israel wants the rest of the hostages to return to their families, then it must stop the war immediately. Any conclusion to the war would require thousands of Israeli military personnel to pack up and leave Gaza. Without that, from Hamas’s perspective, there is nothing to talk about.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is as intransigent as Hamas. Even if Hamas were willing to change its position, it is highly unlikely that Netanyahu would be willing to treat Sinwar’s death as an opportunity to negotiate. Last week, Netanyahu released a video statement to the Israeli public, making his message clear: The fact that Sinwar is no longer there to terrorize the state of Israel does not necessarily translate into a silencing of the war.

At the same time Netanyahu was making his remarks, the Israeli army was invading Jabalia, a large refugee camp in northern Gaza, for the third time to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area. The fighting has been some of the most intense of the entire war, with medical sources saying more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in less than three weeks.

US officials had hoped that Sinwar’s death would inspire Netanyahu to package it as a massive victory and find a way to de-escalate because the prime minister would have the political cover to do so.

This delusional hope assumes that the Israeli government is interested in an exit. Netanyahu, instead, is using the death of the Hamas chief as an example of why he was right to repeatedly reject Washington’s calls for a ceasefire. The Biden administration believes that the events of the past week are of such monumental importance that the Israeli prime minister would move. But Netanyahu still depends on the same hard-line, ultra-nationalist ministers to maintain power, and many of those ministers will settle for a total military defeat of Hamas as an organization and the formal incorporation of Gaza into Israel.

The world is arguably better off without Sinwar. But the situation, after Sinwar, does not seem much different. Israel still wants Hamas defeated, and Hamas still wants an immediate ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal. Unless that changes, expect the deadly status quo to continue.

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Daniel DePetris is a member of Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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