Aisha Tukur
US President Joe Biden has said there is a “possibility of working towards a ceasefire” in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the armed group Hezbollah, but added that “it’s going to be harder in Gaza” despite the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this week.
He was speaking as he left Berlin, where he met the German, French and British leaders.
Sinwar’s death had raised hopes in some quarters of an end to the war in Gaza.
But on Friday the deputy leader of Hamas, Khalil al-Hayya, insisted it would only strengthen the group. He said Israeli hostages would not be returned until Israel ended the war and withdrew from Gaza.
Meanwhile Israel escalated its assault on the Jabalia refugee camp, a densely-populated urban area north of Gaza City which Israeli forces have besieged for two weeks, sending another army unit to support troops already operating there.
Sinwar was responsible for the deadly Hamas attack on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October last year, which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 42,500 people, the Hamas run health ministry there says.
The Israeli military said earlier that Sinwar was killed when the building he was hiding in in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was struck with “tank fire”. It also noted its troops traded gunfire with a group of “terrorists” before the building was targeted.
On Friday the pathologist in Israel who conducted his autopsy told US media the cause of death had been a “severe traumatic brain injury” from being shot in the head.
Dr Chen Kugel, from the National Center of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, says he found wounds “from other sources” on the former Hamas leader – including injuries to his right forearm from “missile fire”, a damaged left leg from “fallen masonry” and shrapnel injuries to his body.
“They caused the severe damage, but the cause of death is the gunshot wound in the head,” he told wecastonline .
