The Media Line: Arab Public Opinion Split on Sinwar’s Death as Governments Stay Silent

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

Arab Public Opinion Split on Sinwar’s Death as Governments Stay Silent

Some Arabs believe that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death will bring the Gaza war to an end, while others say the ‘martyred’ Sinwar will soon be replaced by another resistance leader

By Hudhaifa Ebrahim / The Media Line

On Thursday evening, Israel announced the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a military operation in Rafah. As of Friday, no Arab country has released an official statement on Sinwar’s death. Arab public opinion on the matter is varied, with some condemning the killing and others cautiously optimistic that it may lead to an end to the war in Gaza.

Political experts say that two distinct reasons explain the lack of official reactions to Sinwar’s death. Sinwar, who is considered the mastermind behind the October 7 attacks, does not have official international relations. That was also the case for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader who was killed in Tehran in July 2024 while visiting the inauguration ceremony of new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Experts also note that unlike Haniyeh or Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who were killed in intelligence operations, Sinwar was killed in battle.

“We hope that the killing of Yahya Sinwar will lead to calm in Gaza,” Saudi political analyst Abdullah Al-Tawilai told The Media Line. “Yahya Sinwar caused the war that has resulted in more than 45,000 victims so far in Gaza. Everyone knew from day one that Israel would not remain silent about the October 7, 2023 attacks, and so his poor planning led to all this destruction.”

Al-Tawilai said that many Gazans blame Hamas for setting off the war.

“It is easy to talk about resistance or fighting Israel, but the reality speaks otherwise,” he said. “There are people dying every day, and we must preserve their blood. We were only a few steps away from declaring a Palestinian state due to political movements, but today, Gaza has lost everything.”

Anwar al-Khalidi, another Saudi political analyst, said he expects the war in Gaza to end soon now that Sinwar has been killed, although Israel will likely continue to strike other targets in the region.

“Israel will undoubtedly bomb Iranian militias in Iraq and Yemen and will continue in Syria, and we may see Iran targeted as well,” he told The Media Line.

Al-Khalidi noted that Sinwar had only been photographed twice since the October 7 attacks. “The first was when he was escaping in the tunnels, and the second was when he was liquidated by Israel,” he said.

“Yahya Sinwar is the last Palestinian leader inside Palestine who has direct contact with Iran and Qatar, and therefore it is expected that there will be great confusion in the movement in the coming days, whether through revenge operations against the hostages held by the movement or even handing over the hostages in exchange for stopping the war in Gaza,” al-Khalidi continued.

Humam Shaalan, a former Iraqi military officer, made a similar prediction.

“There will be no new field commander, as far as I know about Hamas, so we may see an end to the war in Gaza, which has essentially become a secondary battlefield for the Israeli army,” he told The Media Line.

Shaalan characterized Sinwar as “not a seasoned field commander.” “He made terrible mistakes that led to his eventual death,” he said.

“Now the ball is in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s court,” Shaalan continued. “The last Hamas field commander has been killed, and Netanyahu has two options: either declare victory and stop the war, especially since we expect the hostage issue to end soon, or continue fighting, which will then be a difficult time for Netanyahu in front of the international community.”

Kuwaiti political scientist Khaled Obaid, on the other hand, described Sinwar as a martyr and a hero.

“From my point of view, Sinwar was a fierce fighter, and he tried to restore the rights of the Palestinians, but as for his planning of the attacks of October 7, 2023, we are not sure of that,” Obaid told The Media Line.

He said that Sinwar will be replaced by a new leader who will “achieve the desired victory.”

On social media, many Arabs shared posts describing Sinwar as a “martyr of the resistance,” circulating clips of Sinwar talking about his intention to continue the fight against Israel until the establishment of a Palestinian state. Others shared clips of the destruction in Gaza, criticizing Sinwar for setting off mass destruction, displacement, and death for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.