LOS ANGELES.–Striking European Hospital in Khan Younis, Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] hit a Hamas command-and-control center in the basement of the Hospital where its believed Hamas Gaza leader Mohammed Sinwar was present. IDF has not yet confirmed whether the same bunker-buster bomb used to kill Hezbollah Supreme Leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah Sept. 27, 2024 was used in Khan Younis. “[Mohammed] Sinwar was the most extreme figure in terms of negotiation positions for reaching a deal,” an official told the Jerusalem Post. “If he is out of the picture, it should ease efforts to reach an agreement. With Mohammed’s brother, former Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar killed Oct. 16, 2024 by an IDF bomb, the younger brother was taking a hard line with Israeli hostages, making it impossible to end the war. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz sees Mohammed as key to getting hostages.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not let up in his strikes in Gaza to drive the remaining Hamas terrorists out of underground military tunnels. As long as Hamas refuses to release the remaining hostages dead-or-alive, Netanyahu plans to continue the war until Hamas finally leaves the territory. Hamas leadership, whatever’s left, is based out several Arab states like Egypt, Qatar, Syria, Iraq, etc., now on its way out of Gaza. No reconstruction of the Gaza Strip can begin until Hamas takes an exile deal for remaining Hamas leaders and terrorists still hiding inside Gaza’s military tunnels. Sinwar, 49, has been difficult to negotiate with, seeking to avenge the death of his brother, Yahya. Bomb-damage assessment reveals a deep crater near a possible Hamas command-and-control center, with Hamas confirming at least 28 dead and more wounded.
IDF has not confirmed or denied that Mohammed Siwar was among the dead since no IDF member was on the ground to confirm anything. “We will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to use hospitals and humanitarian facilities in Gaza as shelters and terrorist headquarters,” Katz said, knowing that’s exactly what Hamas does. Hamas fights its war with Israel from Gaza’s impenetrable underground tunnel system, built with the intent of one day conquering Israel. When Yahya Sinwar launched his Oct. 7, 2023 attack, he was convinced he could destroy the Jewish state and return Palestinians back to the Holy Land. Hamas operates with the single-minded focus of destroying Israel. It routinely tells Gaza residents that they’ll be returning Palestinians back to their ancestral homes before the 1948 war of independence when Israel declared statehood in 1949.
Israeli has the long history with Hamas founded in 1987 by blind Sheikh Ahmed Yassin to serve as the military wing of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]. Since forming the PLO in 1964, Arafat worked clandestine with five other Arab States to conquer Israel in the 1967 war. After the Six Day War, Israel destroyed the standing armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and the PLO, all failing to destroy Israel. Hamas served as Arafat’s enforcer for years, using suicide bombing in Israel to win concessions, to force Israel into giving up more territory. After the Six Day War, Israel annexed Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan’s East Jerusalem and West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for the peace deal brokered by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, then returned the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Yahya Sinwar would say that Gaza residents serve Hamas as martyrs in the cause of Palestine liberation, meaning their death and destruction have meaning on the path to liberating Palestine. Hamas has spent the better part of 20 years looting the Gaza Strip of its donor cash earmarked to rebuild the dilapidated area but ending up in Hamas’s pockets. Several of Hamas’s leaders turned into millionaires and billionaires, living in the lap of luxury in places like Doha, Qatar. Netanyahu has said that Hamas cannot be trusted with one penny of donor cash for the purposes of rebuilding the bombed out Mediterranean seaside area. Hamas considers it a victor that some of its leadership is still hiding out in Gaza’s tunnel system with military still able to smuggle in arms to battle Israel. Netanyahu is committed to seeing every last Hamas terrorist removed from Gaza.
President Donald Trump is busy shuttling from Saudi Arabia to Qatar today for more business deals knowing that he could be diverted tomorrow to Istanbul to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for peace talks. Trump has stretched himself thin but would go the extra mile knowing that Putin wamts to see him at any peace talks with Zelensky. Trump knows how ballistic Zelensky can get and wants to create the best possible opportunity for a peace deal. Putin wants Trump there because he knows Zelensky thinks he can impose a European Union-type settlement that would get nowhere. Zelensky has been unrealistic demanding that Putin pull his forces from Ukraine when they’ve fought a three-year bloody war with thousands of casualties to gain more sovereign territory inside Ukraine. Trump knows what Putin wants.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
