On Thursday, October 17, Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip – the latest “high-value target” in a genocidal war that has claimed the lives of more than 42,000 Palestinians in just over a year. year and which has now spread to Lebanon. .
Of course, the elimination of Sinwar hardly signifies the end of the genocide, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear in his post-assassination announcement: “Today we have settled the scores. Today, evil has received a heavy blow, but our task is still not finished.
Fortunately for the powers that be in a nation whose very existence depends on perpetual massacre, the Israeli “task” will never be fully accomplished – at least as long as there are still Palestinians and fellow Arabs determined to resist the bloody efforts of Israel.
And yet, Sinwar’s assassination will make it even more difficult for Israel to continue to justify its current war on Gaza, even if that justification never really matters to Israel’s main international backer, the United States. ‘America.
Indeed, US complicity in the genocide has long involved assistance in locating Sinwar; Last August, the New York Times reported that Joe Biden’s administration had “invested enormous resources in trying to find” the Hamas leader, providing “ground-penetrating radar” to Israel while also charging the American spy agencies “to intercept Mr. Sinwar’s communications.” »
Like the Israeli assassination in Beirut in September of iconic Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, Sinwar’s assassination is undoubtedly symbolic given the man’s ability to evade Israel’s murderous designs .
Over the past 12 months, Sinwar has remained in the Gaza Strip and continued to carry out military operations against Israel, showing a little more courage than, say, a certain Israeli leader who prefers to travel the world by plane to complain about insufficient international support for the massacres. .
Naturally, Sinwar has been clearly presented in Western mainstream media as a murderous demon bent on destroying Israel – since this is the narrative that allows Israel to accomplish its “task.”
Meanwhile, a glance at an excerpt from a 2018 interview with Sinwar reveals that the Hamas leader was rather more determined to build a Palestinian future than to destroy things: “I’m not saying that I don’t I won’t fight anymore… I say I won’t fight anymore. I don’t want any more war. I want an end to the (Israeli) siege (of Gaza). You walk to the beach at sunset and you see all these teenagers on the shore chatting and wondering what the world is like on the other side of the sea. What life is like. It’s breaking. And should break everyone. I want them for free.
Born in a refugee camp in Gaza and imprisoned by Israel for more than two decades for the crime of fighting for Palestinian land violently appropriated by Israel, Sinwar was acutely aware of the limits imposed by Israel on Palestinian “freedom.”
Obviously, these limits are now particularly pronounced. Forget walking to the Gaza beach at sunset to watch Palestinian teenagers wonder what life is like in places not subject to a permanent Israeli siege and intermittent manic bombing.
These days, you may be more likely to observe Palestinian teenagers being burned alive during Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals.
And while Israel may have physically dispensed with a key figure in anti-Zionist resistance, it is consciously breeding ever greater resistance – without which, of course, the lucrative and bloody Israeli enterprise ultimately cannot prosper.
According to the aforementioned August New York Times report, U.S. officials were convinced at the time that the assassination or capture of Yahya Sinwar would provide Netanyahu “with a means to claim a significant military victory and potentially make him more willing to put an end to military operations. in Gaza. »
But as Netanyahu himself has now made clear, Israel may have “settled scores” with Sinwar, “but our task is still not finished.”
When Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar’s predecessor, in July, Reuters noted that Haniyeh had been “viewed by many diplomats as a moderate compared to the more hardline members” of Hamas. As if we needed any further proof of Israel’s complete lack of interest in peace.
As for the United States’ interest in peace, after Sinwar’s assassination yesterday, Biden issued an enthusiastic statement praising himself for “directing (US) special operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side by side with their Israeli counterparts. to help locate and track Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza.
According to Biden, it was the equivalent of the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011 – and “a good day for Israel, for the United States and for the world.”
But a good day for genocide is not really a good day.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.