‘Sinwar storm’ is coming for Israel, claims new Hamas leader

Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in Gaza by Israeli forces last week, “kicked up a storm” against Israel that would eventually “lead to its destruction,” the acting leader of Hamas said.

Paying tribute to his former colleague via video link at a memorial service in Istanbul on Monday, Khaled Mashal added that Israel “sought to impose a bleak fate on Sinwar, yet God bestowed upon him a legacy of dignity; he lived with unwavering courage and died with honour."

Israel released footage of a man it claims to be Sinwar sitting in a chair with a wounded arm swatting away a drone before the IDF killed the Hamas leader.

In his video address, Mashal said that Hamas “will remain loyal to its path of martyrs, its principles, its values, and its strategies in leadership and resistance,” continuing that the group, which is classed by the UK, US and EU as a terrorist organisation, “has endured the journey of resistance for decades”.

However, Mashal is currently only taking over as acting head of the Hamas political bureau outside of Palestinian territories, having left after the Six-Day War in 1967. He hasn’t lived there since.

Sinwar, who masterminded the 7 October attacks which killed over 1,200 Israelis, was the latest of multiple senior Hamas officials killed in the conflict, which has also killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Gazan Ministry of Health.

His death leaves a power vacuum with no obvious successor in the territory, where two-thirds of the infrastructure has either been damaged or destroyed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also vowed to continue the offensive in Gaza, saying the war is “not over yet," despite increasing calls for a ceasefire from international allies, including the US, and the families