Israel hails ‘beginning of the end’ of Hamas after Sinwar killing

West piles pressure on Netanyahu to end conflict after death of Oct 7 mastermind but he vows to ‘go into Rafah and finish the job’

Israel has killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, in an assassination that marks the “beginning of the end” of the terror group’s rule of Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu urged Hamas’s remaining terrorists to lay down their arms, hand over the hostages and surrender as he hailed the death of Israel’s most wanted man.
The mastermind of the Oct 7 massacre was killed when an Israeli tank fired on a building in the southern city of Rafah on Wednesday.
Israeli forces happened upon Sinwar, who was thought to be hiding in the vast tunnel network underneath Gaza, by chance and were not immediately aware of the magnitude of the clash.
They discovered the body on Thursday after spotting the corpse in the rubble with a drone.
“This is the beginning of the day after Hamas,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video statement, confirming the death of the man behind the “worst massacre in our people’s history since the Holocaust”.
While Israel had “settled the score” with Sinwar, who plotted the Oct 7 attack in which 1,200 Israeli citizens were killed, Mr Netanyahu said more needed to be done to end the war.
Addressing Gazan civilians, he said: “Sinwar ruined your life. He told you he was a lion, but in reality he was hiding in a dark den. And he was killed when he fled in a panic from our soldiers.”
Hamas must release the remaining hostages they hold, he said, and any who return captives would be allowed to leave Gaza and live.
But amid fears in the Israeli security establishment that Hamas could kill hostages in revenge for Sinwar’s death, he threatened to kill any who harm the captives.
“We will not stop the war,” he said. “We will go into Rafah” to finish the job.
But the killing of Hamas’ figurehead raised hopes that an end to more than 12-months of brutal fighting could be reached.
Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, urged Israel to use the death of Sinwar to seek peace.
“This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war,” she said at a campaign stop in Milwaukee.
Joe Biden, the US president, said he would be discussing “ending the war once and for all” with Mr Netanyahu in the coming days.
The Biden administration has long pushed for Mr Netanyahu to restrain its operations in Gaza and Lebanon, although its efforts have had little effect as Israel pursues a definitive defeat of the Iran-backed terror groups on its borders.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said a ceasefire and the release of hostages were “long overdue.”
He said: “As the leader of the terrorist group Hamas, Yahya Sinwar was the mastermind behind the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, as 1,200 people were slaughtered in Israel.
“Today my thoughts are with the families of those victims. The UK will not mourn his death.
“The release of all hostages, an immediate ceasefire and an increase in humanitarian aid are long overdue so we can move towards a long-term, sustainable peace in the Middle East.”
An Israeli official told The Telegraph the ceasefire negotiation team and the security establishment were on Thursday night holding “emergency discussions” in light of Sinwar’s assassination
In a joint statement on Thursday, the IDF and Shin Bet intelligence agency said soldiers from the 828 Bislamach Brigade killed three terrorists, including Sinwar, during a routine operation in Rafah.
Drone footage released by the IDF shows what is believed to be Sinwar’s final moments.
He is seen sitting in a chair inside a bombed-out building and appears to throw a wooden stick at the drone, which had swooped inside.
Photographs from the scene showed the corpse of Sinwar with a bloody hole in his skull.
Soldiers were reported to have fired shoulder-mounted rocket launchers at the small building where he was situated, causing part of the structure to collapse and cave in his head.
It was not clear if Sinwar, who was carrying grenades in the pockets of a military vest, was living in the building or passing through, Israeli officials said.
Early assessments noted the similarities between the dead terrorist’s teeth and those of Sinwar in earlier pictures. Israel confirmed the killing by matching DNA and dental records it holds from his time in Israeli prison.
Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, was first to announce the killing on Thursday afternoon in a statement to the world media.
“The mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7th, was eliminated today by IDF (Israeli military) soldiers,” he said.
“This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel and a victory for the entire free world against the evil axis of extreme Islam led by Iran.”
The assassination “creates a possibility” to free the rest of the 101 hostages still held by Hamas, he said, and create a Gaza free of Hamas.
Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s opposition, said Sinwar’s name “belongs alongside [Osama] Bin Laden and [Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali] al-Baghdadi for the terror and misery they have reaped on the world.”
On Thursday night, Iran’s mission to the United Nations warned that the killing of Sinwar would lead to the strengthening of “resistance” in the region.
“He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forward his path toward the liberation of Palestine,” the mission said in a post on X.
News of the terrorist leader’s death was celebrated across Western capitals.
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, said his killing was a moment of “relief” for the people of Israel.
“Sinwar’s life was the embodiment of evil and marked by hatred for all that is good in the world,” he said.
Obituary
John Healey, the UK defence secretary, said he “would not mourn the death of a terror leader like Sinwar.”
General David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency who led the US army in Afghanistan, said the killing was “bigger than Osama bin Laden”.
Bin Laden was “massively symbolic but not that operational… This is both hugely symbolic… but also hugely operational,” he told the BBC.
Sinwar was named as Hamas’s overall leader after the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. He had pursued an apocalyptic vision of existential war with Israel throughout his life, plotting the Oct 7 massacre in secret for several years.
In the attack, Hamas terrorists burnt, raped and tortured civilians before taking 250 Israelis back into Gaza.
Fearful of being assassinated, Sinwar relied on a network of human couriers and hand-written notes as he led ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations with Israel.
Hamas is experiencing a “moral collapse” because of the death of its leader, a separate Israeli official told The Telegraph. “And as a result we might see local commanders in Gaza surrendering with the hostages. There’s still a lot of work to do, but it will be like in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) where we operate almost freely, killing and capturing terrorists. No hotel is safe and no country is safe, and we will continue to hunt the leaders of Hamas,” the official said.
They added that Sinwar’s brother, Muhammad, was likely to replace him as leader. Other contenders for the role are reported to be former chief Khaled Meshaal, who lives in Qatar.
When news of Sinwar’s death was announced over a loudspeaker on a beach in Tel Aviv, Israelis broke into cheers and applause.
Some hostage families last night urged the government of Mr Netanyahu to reach a deal with Hamas to free the remaining hostages.
“We’re calling on the Israeli government and the US administration to act swiftly and do whatever is needed to reach a deal with the captors. We are at an inflection point where the goals set for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages,” said Orna and Ronan  Neutra, parents of the Israeli-American hostage Omer.