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With warfare raging across multiple fronts, it’s hard to find hope in the relentlessly bleak Mideast. But the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the heinous Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds hostage (including Americans), offers an opportunity. President Joe Biden should press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as those left to represent Hamas to seize this moment and reach a cease-fire/hostage-release deal.
The killing of Sinwar by Israeli forces “was a turning point in the battlefield,” said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Hamas, he said, “is effectively a spent force,” with 23 of 24 fighting brigades destroyed, along with its aboveground infrastructure. In addition, most of the tunnel network has been mapped out, with about 15% destroyed. While Schanzer expects remnant forces to continue an insurgency, “this is likely the moment where the international community truly begins to pivot to a ‘day-after scenario.’ ”
Whether Iran is prepared to pivot is another matter. Beyond sponsoring Hamas, Schanzer said, that country is behind Hezbollah in Lebanon and insurgents in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, including the Houthis in Yemen who are crimping shipping (and by extension, the global economy) by firing on Red Sea vessels.
“The wider war continues,” said Schanzer. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has lost one of its proxies that it deployed to fight against Israel since Oct. 7.” What was a “seven-front war” drops to six if Hamas “is truly eliminated, which means there still is a lot of fighting left, unless somehow the United States is somehow able to use this moment as leverage to bring about a more enduring cease-fire that would see the release of hostages, force Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River in Lebanon, thereby creating a buffer zone between Israel and Hezbollah.”
Closing off the front in Gaza won’t be easy and will require U.S. commitment regardless of who wins November’s presidential election, said Thomas Warrick, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. First, a reeling Hamas will need to recalibrate its leadership, which is important not only for the terrorist group but for international interlocutors, including Israel, since they need to know who actually controls the fate of the hostages.
Some possible candidates include Hamas leaders living in Doha, and Schanzer believes that the Biden administration should leverage its relationship with Qatar to pressure these leaders to publicly call for a ceasefire and hostage release.
