Jerusalem (AFP) - Hamas vowed on Friday it would not release the hostages it seized during its October 7 attack on Israel until the Gaza war ends, as it mourned the death of its leader Yahya Sinwar.

The killing of Sinwar, the mastermind of the deadliest attack in Israeli history, had raised hopes of a turning point in the war, including for families of the Israeli hostages and Gazans enduring a dire humanitarian crisis.

However as Qatar-based Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya mourned Sinwar in a video statement on Friday, he reiterated the Palestinian group’s position that no hostages would be released “unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops”.

And Israeli forces pummelled Gaza with air strikes on Friday, with rescuers recovering the bodies of three Palestinian children from the rubble of their home in the north of the territory, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.

“We always thought that when this moment arrived the war would end and our lives would return to normal,” Jemaa Abou Mendi, a 21-year-old Gaza resident, told AFP.

“But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is quite the opposite. The war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated.”

Sinwar was Israel’s most wanted man, and his death – announced by the Israeli military on Thursday – deals a major blow to the already weakened group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Sinwar’s killing an “important landmark in the decline of the evil rule of Hamas”.

While it did not spell the end of the war, it was “the beginning of the end,” he added.

- ‘Opportunity’ -

Some hailed the news of Sinwar’s death as a sign of better things to come.

US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel’s top arms provider, said Sinwar’s death was “an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas”.

In a joint statement, Biden and the leaders of Germany, France and Britain emphasised “the immediate necessity to bring the hostages home to their families, for ending the war in Gaza, and ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians”.

Former US President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term in elections next month, said Sinwar’s death would make it “easier” to achieve peace.

Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged Israel’s government and international mediators to leverage “this major achievement to secure hostages’ return”.

In August, Netanyahu called Sinwar “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”.

Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of killed hostage Yoram Metzger, said with Sinwar dead it is “unacceptable” that the hostages would “stay in captivity even one more day”.

But she added: “We (are) afraid that Netanyahu does not intend on stopping the war, nor does he intend to bring the hostages back.”

The Israeli military said Sinwar’s bodyguard, Mahmoud Hamdan, was “eliminated” on Friday close to where the Hamas chief was killed.

- ‘Hell on Earth’ -

Hamas sparked the war in Gaza by staging the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

During the attack, militants took 251 hostages back into Gaza. Ninety-seven remain there, including 34 who Israeli officials say are dead.

Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas and bring back the hostages has killed 42,500 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.

A “conservative” estimate puts the death toll among children in Gaza at over 14,100, said James Elder, spokesman of the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF.

For the one million children currently in the besieged territory, “Gaza is the real-world embodiment of hell on Earth,” Elder said.

Criticism has been mounting over the civilian toll and lack of food and aid reaching Gaza, where the UN has warned of famine.

- ‘Devastation’ in Lebanon -

Israel is also fighting a war with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. The two sides had exchanged rocket fire since the October 7 attack, with Israel sending ground troops across the Lebanese border last month.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it had destroyed Hezbollah’s regional command centre with an air strike.

Hezbollah said it fired a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa and areas to its north.

The group later said it launched “a swarm of explosives-laden drones” at an “air missile defence base” east of the central Israeli city of Hadera.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon warned that the escalating war “is causing widespread destruction of towns and villages” in the country’s south.

Since late September, the war has left at least 1,418 people dead in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.

The war has also drawn in other Iran-aligned armed groups, including in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

The Israeli military on Friday said it had intercepted an “aerial target” approaching from Syria, which a war monitor said was a drone launched by an Iran-backed group.

Iran conducted a missile strike on Israel on October 1, for which Israel has vowed to retaliate.

Iran, Hezbollah, Afghanistan’s Taliban government and Yemen’s Huthi rebels all mourned the death of Sinwar, vowing continued support for their Palestinian ally Hamas.

At a demonstration in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, resident Mutahhar al-Khatib said Sinwar’s death “was shocking news”.

“But if Sinwar is martyred, there will be 10 more in his place,” he told AFP.

The Palestine Liberation Organization also expressed its condolences over the “martyrdom of the great national leader Yahya Sinwar”.

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