Peloni: There can be no substitute for total and complete victory with a permanent Israeli security presence over the entire Gaza Strip including the complete control over the Philadelphi Corridor.
Seth J. Frantzman | October 18, 2024
Masked Hamas militants (Getty Images)
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a clash with Israeli troops could help transform Israel’s war efforts against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
It has been a difficult year for Israel fighting this long war. Both groups have been aided by the Iranian regime, which has supplied them with weapons and backing. Iran has also been helping other terrorist groups and militias in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, its goal being to surround Israel with threats, and chip away at Israel’s defences. Drones have attacked from Iraq, ballistic missiles have been fired from Yemen, terrorists have crossed into Israel from Jordan. Today two terrorists tried to infiltrate Israel from Jordan’s Dead Sea area. They were killed in a clash with the IDF.
This axis will keep attempting to do Israel harm. However, the country now has a chance to grasp success on two fronts and hand Iran and its proxies a historic defeat. With Sinwar gone and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah eliminated in an Israeli airstrike last month, there is an opening.
In order to understand how Sinwar’s elimination may change the war it’s important to understand Israel’s current goals and also how the fronts look in Gaza and Lebanon. Hamas started this war with around 24 battalions of fighters, which represented up to 30,000 men under arms. It also had thousands of rockets and hundreds of miles of tunnels in Gaza.
The IDF defeated the Hamas battalions in battles that took place for most of 2024. For instance, the Hamas units in Khan Younis were mostly defeated by April. In May the IDF went into Rafah to clear Hamas from areas near the Egyptian border. The result of these operations was that the IDF was also able to find and eliminate many key Hamas leaders in Gaza, such as Mohammed Dief and Marwan Issa, two key members of Sinwar’s leadership circle.
The walls closed in on Sinwar as his lieutenants were killed. On 16 October his luck ran out. He was seen by IDF troops along with two other men moving between several houses in Rafah. Sinwar fled to the second floor of a house, but he was wounded and killed in subsequent clashes with Israeli troops. His dead body was found the next day by IDF troops when they entered the home. While some pro-Hamas commentators have depicted Sinwar’s last moments as a heroic death of a ‘martyr’, the fact is that Sinwar was killed in the ruins of Rafah, destruction that he brought on Gaza through his genocidal attack on Israel on October 7.
Hamas has few leaders left in Gaza. Sinwar’s brother, who is also a leader in Hamas, is still at-large in Gaza. However, the rest of Hamas’ remaining leadership resides in Qatar. Hamas will have difficulty reconstituting its forces. If Israel moves quickly to consolidate gains and exploit the death of Sinwar, it may be able to finally collapse Hamas rule in Gaza. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007 and it has brought nothing but ruin and destruction to the area. Now is the time for Israel to press forward with the opportunity that Sinwar’s death brings.
Hezbollah joined the war against Israel at the prodding of Iran. However, it has also suffered the loss of numerous commanders throughout in its three weeks of war with Israel. Hezbollah may see the death of Sinwar as an opening to come to an agreement with Israel and establish a ceasefire. If it sees that Hamas is on its last legs, then it may prefer to sue for peace rather than waste more of its fighters in a lost cause against Israel.
Against all odds, the Israel armed forces have brought one calamity after another to the Iranian theocracy. The killing of Ismail Haniyeh was prophetic of serious losses to come. Iran’s proxy, Hamas, is on its last legs, with hundreds of Hamas members surrendering on the 19th and 20th of October, following the death of mass murderer Sinwar. The pager and walkie talkie explosions took hundreds or more Hezbollah terrorists out of action, and forced Hezbollah to communicate by face to face meetings, which led to the killing of Nasrallah and a group of top Hezbollah commanders. The entire Hezbollah command structure has been eliminated, leading one man who was named a successor to leave the Lebanese battle field to pray in Iran. One Hezbollah successor was eliminated before the news named him as successor.
A few months ago not too many people thought Iran could be so humiliated by Israel. After all, Iran’s existence is being supported by THE United States of America, or rather by the Obama-Biden-Harris latest version of pro-Iranian policy that began in 1979.
Meanwhile, the US has placed obstacles in the way of Israel’s success, and due to the determination of Bibi Netanyahu who knows he has the Israeli people behind him, Israel is just proceeding to succeed no matter what obstacles are thrown in her way.
It is a miracle what Israel has accomplished, despite the global hateful propaganda paid for by Iran and Qatar.
It is not just the current US administration that is malevolent towards Israel, but the globalist forces in Europe such as Macron of France and Keir Starmer in the UK who have Jew hatred to add to their long list of malicious actions.
But despite all this, Israel and the Israeli people are succeeding. Israel is on track to win this war, maintain a presence in Gaza, and hopefully work with the next government of Jordan to bring peace to the Middle East.