JERUSALEM: Zionist entity said on Thursday its forces killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in a Gaza operation, dealing a massive blow to the group it has been fighting since the October 7, 2023 attack. “Yahya Sinwar, responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7, was eliminated... by IDF (Zionist military) soldiers,” Foreign Minister I Katz said in a statement. The military later confirmed that “after a year-long pursuit”, soldiers “eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip” on Wednesday.

Hamas has not confirmed his death. Zionists accuse Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack, the deadliest in history, and had been hunting him down since the start of the Gaza war. He rose through the ranks of the Palestinian militant group to become first its leader in Gaza, then its overall head after the killing in July of political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Zionist announcement on Sinwar comes weeks after it assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a massive strike in Lebanon, where its military has been at war since late September. A slew of other militant commanders have also been killed in recent months. Zionist entity said earlier this year that it had killed Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military chief, though the Palestinian group has not confirmed it. Deif stood accused of planning, with Sinwar, the October 7 attack.

With Hamas massively weakened more than a year into the Gaza war, Sinwar’s death, would deal a seismic blow to the organization. In a brief statement, the military said that during “operations in the Gaza Strip, three terrorists were eliminated”. A Zionist security official told AFP that the military was conducting a DNA test on a militant’s body. In a post on X, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the country would “reach every terrorist and eliminate them”. US President Joe Biden was briefed aboard Air Force One while heading to Germany and was being kept informed of developments, a US official said Thursday.

Zionist entity has been at war with Hamas since the October 7 attack. Zionist retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 42,438 people, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which the UN considers reliable. Following the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to crush Hamas and bring home all 251 hostages seized by militants in their cross-border onslaught. Zionist entity has since expanded the scope of its operations to Lebanon, where Hamas ally Hezbollah opened a front by launching low-intensity cross-border strikes that forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Netanyahu has vowed to battle Hezbollah until victory, and Zionists on Thursday launched strikes on the south Lebanese city of Tyre, where the militant group and its allies hold sway. Zionist entity also issued evacuation warnings for civilians in parts of Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold. It had earlier struck a Hezbollah target in Syria, according to a war monitor, while Zionist main ally the United States used heavy bombers to hit rebel targets in Yemen.

Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi warned against the expansion of regional conflict during a rare meeting in Cairo on Thursday. Araghchi is the first Iranian foreign minister to visit Cairo since 2013. The stop is part of his multi-country regional tour after Zionists vowed to strike back following an Iranian missile barrage against Zionist entity on October 1. According to a statement from Sisi’s office, the pair discussed “the need to stop regional escalation” and “intensifying efforts towards ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon”.

Iran’s official news agency said Sisi and Araghchi “agreed on the need to intensify efforts to end the crimes in Gaza and the aggression against Lebanon, assist the displaced and prevent the expansion of the Zionist regime’s warmongering reach,” in a reference to Zionist entity. After decades of strained ties, Tehran and Cairo have undertaken a slow rapprochement in recent years, with diplomatic exchanges increasing over the past year since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Egypt has historically played a mediator role between Zionist and Palestinian officials, including Iran-backed Hamas. But its efforts along with fellow mediators Qatar and the United States have failed to secure a ceasefire in the war, which has since spread to Lebanon where Iran arms and finances Hezbollah. Araghchi’s diplomatic tour, aiming to contain the wars in Gaza and Lebanon from spreading more widely, has already taken him to Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

He is expected next to visit Turkey, according to the Iranian foreign ministry. Iran’s barrage of around 200 missiles was, it said, in retaliation for the killing of two of Iran’s closest allies, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, as well as an Iranian general. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami on Thursday warned that Iran will hit Zionist entity “painfully” if it attacks Iranian targets. In a call with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday, Araghchi said Tehran is ready for a “decisive and regretful” response if attacks.- AFP