Within moments of the confirmation that Israeli forces had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, officials in the United States hailed the killing as an “opportunity” to turn the page on the war and move on to a “day after” for Gaza.
While offering no clear vision of what the future of the ravaged territory might look like, White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described Sinwar’s killing on Thursday as a chance to “bring about a better day for the people of Gaza, the people of Israel, the people of the whole region”.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris echoed that assertion in their own statements.
Israeli leaders, however, had a drastically different message. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war is “not over” and pledged that Israeli forces would operate in Gaza for “years to come”.
But with no details about Washington’s vision for the future of Gaza and no indication that the Biden administration would meaningfully pressure Israel towards a political resolution to the conflict, Israel is likely to proceed with – if not intensify – its military onslaught, analysts say.
And amid the widespread destruction and carnage in Gaza, any post-war plan will face monumental difficulties in conception and implementation.
H A Hellyer, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies and scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, dismissed US talks of a “day after” in Gaza as “laughable”.
“There is no day after,” said Hellyer. “We all need to recognise that the Israelis have made it very clear that they’re not leaving Gaza, that the military presence will remain, so the idea of any sort of political horizon here is just very, very unrealistic.”
He added that while Washington is talking about the future of Gaza, Israel is pushing on with its occupation of the territory along with the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Syria’s Golan Heights, while also invading Lebanon.
Israel “is not showing the slightest interest in leaving any of these places anytime soon”, Hellyer told Al Jazeera.
The real obstacle
While US officials spoke of Sinwar as an “obstacle removed” this week, it’s unclear how his killing will affect negotiations for a ceasefire deal that would see the release of Israeli captives in Gaza, which has failed to materialise for over a year.
Hamas has stressed that it backs an agreement that would lead to a permanent…