Middle East latest: Netanyahu says Israel has 'settled its account' with Sinwar

Israel says the top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza. Foreign Minister Katz called Sinwar’s killing a “military and moral achievement for the Israeli army.”

Sinwar was a chief architect of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that precipitated the latest escalating conflicts in the Middle East.

Earlier Thursday, Palestinian officials reported at least 28 people were dead, including four children, in an Israeli strike on a school being used as a shelter in Gaza on Thursday. Nearly 100 people were wounded in the strike in Jabaliya, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency unit in the north.

Syria’s military said an Israeli strike early Thursday wounded two civilians and damaged a military post. Israel regularly targets military sites in Syria linked to Iran and to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, after a year of near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire.

Lebanon says more than 2,400 people have been killed in the past year and 77% of public schools are out of service, either due to their use as shelters or their location in areas directly affected by the war.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

___

Here's the latest:

Britain's prime minister says the UK will not mourn Sinwar's death

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says his thoughts are with Hamas’ victims in the wake of confirmation by Israel that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead.

In a statement Thursday, Starmer called Sinwar "the mastermind behind the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, as 1,200 people were slaughtered in Israel,” referring to the raid by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023.

The militants also took some 250 hostages that day, and about 100 remain inside Gaza, although about a third of them are believed dead.

Starmer says the “release of all hostages, an immediate ceasefire and an increase in humanitarian aid are long overdue so we can move towards a long-term, sustainable peace in the Middle East.”

He says his thoughts are with the victims' families and that the “UK will not mourn his death."

Israel says Sinwar may have been trying to flee north when he was killed

JERUSALEM — Israel military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar may have been forced to come above ground because Israeli forces were operating in the area where he had been hiding for weeks.

Hagari said Thursday that some of Sinwar’s DNA was found in tunnels close to the area where Israeli soldiers discovered the bodies of six hostages in August. Israeli forces spent weeks carefully combing the area in hopes of finding other hostages and likely came close to Sinwar, Hagari says.

Hagari says they believe Sinwar came above ground to escape further north when he encountered Israeli soldiers and tried to flee to a nearby building.

“We continued operating in that area with determination, we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything,” he said.

The Israeli military also released a drone video showing what it says were Sinwar’s last moments.

Hagari says Israeli forces operating in the southern city of Rafah identified and attempted to shoot three Hamas militants running from building to building on Wednesday. The militants entered a building, which the Israeli army shelled. The military then sent a camera drone inside the building.

The footage shows the drone encountering a man the army says was Sinwar, his face covered with a cloth. One of his hands had been wounded by gunfire, but he threw a stick to try to break the drone with his other hand.

The military later fired another shell at the building, causing it to collapse and killing Sinwar.

Hagari says Sinwar was found with a bulletproof vest, grenades, and 40,000 shekels ($10,700).

Some displaced Palestinians in Gaza say Sinwar died with honor

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Some Palestinians displaced by the yearlong conflict in Gaza see a glimmer of hope that the assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar could bring an end to the war.

“When we heard the news of Sinwar, it is true that we were sad for him, but at the same time we were happy that the war could end,” said Um Mohammed, a woman displaced from Gaza City in northern Gaza. She said she wanted desperately for the war to end so she could go home.

In Deir al-Balah, where many displaced Palestinians have fled over the past year, others called Sinwar’s death “a tragedy” and noted that he had died in an honorable way.

“It will not affect the interest of the country,” said Ahmad Hamdouna, who was also displaced from Gaza City. “After the leader a thousand of leaders will come, and after the man a thousand of men will come.”

Israeli demonstrators call for hostages in Gaza to be released

TEL AVIV — Hundreds of people demonstrating in Tel Aviv are calling for the release of hostages being held in Gaza after the news of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s assassination broke.

The protesters chanted, “Bring them all back – now!” Others carried signs saying, “Sinwar’s end, end the war.”

“On the one hand I’m happy that Sinwar is murdered, but in the second, I’m really, really scared,” Ifat Kalderon said Thursday night. Her cousin, Ofer Kalderon, is one of the hostages being held in Gaza. “I’m scared about the 101 hostages. ... They might murder them or do something because of the murder of Sinwar.”

Hamas militants kidnapped approximately 250 people and killed 1,200 during their attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Many were released in a weeklong cease-fire deal last November, but about 100 remain inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza following the attack has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Biden hopes Sinwar’s death forges a ‘pathway’ to bring Israeli hostages home

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden says the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is a “good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” comparing it to the feeling in the U.S. after the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Israel says Sinwar was killed on Wednesday in Gaza.

Biden said Thursday he will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them “and to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all.”

Biden says with Sinwar’s death “there is now the opportunity for a “day after” in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee echoed Biden's comments.

“While justice has been served to Sinwar, let us not forget that the terrorist network he headed still holds dozens of people hostage in Gaza, and we must continue to press for their safe return,” Sen. Mark Warner said.

Lebanon says death toll in conflict with Israel has surpassed 2,400

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s crisis response unit says 45 people were killed and 179 were wounded in the past 24 hours.

The new numbers announced Thursday raise the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,412 killed and 11,285 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The crisis response unit report also recorded 96 airstrikes and incidents of shelling in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon and the Nabatiyeh province.

Some 1,096 centers — including educational complexes, vocational institutes, universities, and other institutions — are currently sheltering 190,882 people, including 44,121 families, displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the report says.

Among these shelters, 900 are full. The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, including more than 400,000 children, according to the U.N. children’s agency.

The Lebanese Ministry of Education has reported that 77% of public schools are out of service, either due to their use as shelters or their location in areas directly affected by the war.

People continue to flow across the Lebanon-Syria border. Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 17, Lebanese General Security has recorded 333,893 Syrian citizens and 132,074 Lebanese citizens who have crossed into Syria, the report said.

Netanyahu says Israel has ‘settled its account’ with Sinwar

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has “settled its account” with “the person who carried out the worst massacre in the history of our people since the Holocaust.”

Israel says Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' top leader, was killed in fighting in Gaza on Wednesday. Sinwar was a chief architect of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that left 1,200 people dead. Some 250 people were taken hostage in the cross-border raid.

Netanyahu addressed the families of the hostages Thursday saying it was an “important moment in the war” to bring home the hostages. He also said anyone who surrendered weapons and assisted with the return of the hostages would be allowed to leave Gaza safely.

Still, he added, “our war has not yet ended.”

International Criminal Court says it is aware of reports of Sinwar’s death

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The prosecution office of the International Criminal Court, which in May requested an arrest warrant for Yahya Sinwar for his role in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, says it is “aware of the reports” of his death.

Israel says Sinwar was killed Wednesday in a battle with Israeli forces in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.

In a written response to questions from AP, the office said Thursday that, “In line with standard practice, the Office will take relevant action if sufficient information is received confirming his death.”

If his death is confirmed, the office will withdraw its application for the warrant.

German foreign minister demands Israeli hostages held in Gaza be freed

BERLIN — German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is calling on Hamas to release all remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza now that the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, has been killed.

Israel says Sinwar was killed in a battle with Israeli forces in Rafah on Wednesday.

“Sinwar was a brutal murderer and terrorist who wanted to destroy Israel and its people,” she said in a statement Thursday. “As the mastermind of the terror on October 7, he brought death to thousands of people and immeasurable suffering to an entire region.”

“Hamas must now immediately release all hostages and lay down its arms, the suffering of the people of Gaza must finally end,” Baerbock demanded.

Israeli defense minister salutes Israeli military for killing Sinwar

JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister has hailed the Israeli military for killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar,

Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said Sinwar’s killing sends “a clear message to the residents of Gaza. The man who brought disaster and death to the Gaza strip, the man who made you suffer as a result of his murderous actions — the end of this man has come.”

Sinwar was killed in Rafah on Wednesday after an Israeli tank launched a shell at a building, causing it to collapse. The soldiers were on a regular patrol in Gaza when they encountered a number of Hamas militants. They were not specifically searching for Sinwar.

Photos of Sinwar published by Israeli media show a man wearing a bulletproof vest, surrounded by grenades, lying in the rubble of a building with a head wound. He was not surrounded by hostages or using them as human shields when he was killed.

NATO secretary-general says he ‘will not miss’ Hamas leader Sinwar

BRUSSELS — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has condemned Hamas top leader Yahya Sinwar, who Israel says has been killed by Israeli troops in Gaza.

At a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskky in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte told reporters that Sinwar “is widely recognized as the architect of the Oct. 7th, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel. I have condemned them, all allies have condemned them. Every reasonable soul in the world has condemned them. So if he has died, I personally will not miss him.”

Israel confirms Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in Gaza

JERUSALEM — Israel’s foreign minister has confirmed that Israeli troops in Gaza have killed Hamas top leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of the Oct. 7 attack.

Sinwar has topped Israel’s most-wanted list since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war just over a year ago, and his killing strikes a powerful blow to the militant group. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas of his death.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Sinwar’s killing Wednesday a “military and moral achievement for the Israeli army.”

“The assassination of Sinwar will create the possibility to immediately release the hostages and to bring a change that will lead to a new reality in Gaza - without Hamas and without Iranian control,” he said in a statement Thursday.

___

This item has been corrected to show Sinwar as killed Wednesday and that his death was announced Thursday.

US sanctions people and entities allegedly tied to a Houthi and Iranian financial facilitator

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has imposed sanctions on 18 companies, people and ships across Panama, the Marshall Islands, India and more for their alleged ties to sanctioned Houthi and Iranian financial facilitator Sa’id al-Jamal.

Captains of vessels transporting sanctioned Iranian oil and companies that managed and operated the ships that transported the oil have also been also sanctioned. The Treasury said Thursday that revenue from al-Jamal’s network enables Houthi attacks in the region.

Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith says his agency “remains committed to utilizing all available tools to disrupt this key source of illicit revenue that enables the Houthis’ destabilizing activities.”

Palestinian officials say death toll in Gaza school strike rises to 28

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medical officials say the death toll from an Israeli strike on a school where displaced people were sheltering has risen to 28.

The Israeli military said the strike on Thursday targeted dozens of militants who were meeting inside the school in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency unit in the north, said the death toll had climbed to 28, with another 98 people wounded.

Israel has been waging a large military operation in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war, for more than a week now. It has once again called on all residents of northern Gaza to flee south, and it allowed no food aid to enter the north for around two weeks at the start of the month.

Its forces have repeatedly returned to Jabaliya and other areas of Gaza after saying that militants had regrouped there.

Philippines evacuate dozens of workers from Lebanon

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government has evacuated dozens of Filipino workers from Lebanon, including one who urged thousands of compatriots to leave the war-hit nation before it’s too late.

The 45 Filipino workers and two children who arrived Thursday in the Philippine capital were a fraction of about 10,000 to 11,000 Filipinos, many of whom have refused to leave their jobs in Lebanon for their poverty-stricken homeland.

“I hope they would return home because it has become too dangerous there,” Felicilda Aboc, a 56-year-old who has worked for 18 years as a house helper in Lebanon, told reporters at Manila’s international airport. She recounted how a powerful blast two days ago shook the house where she worked.

The Philippine government has offered free chartered flights, cash and new livelihood training to encourage Filipinos in Lebanon to return home but has yet to issue a mandatory evacuation order.

“I was told that even if the bombs are in front of them, they may not go home as long as they still have employers,” Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said of the many Filipinos in Lebanon.

Israel's military looking into whether Hamas leader Sinwar was killed in Gaza

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it is looking into whether Hamas top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a military operation in Gaza.

The military said in a statement Thursday that three militants were killed during operations in Gaza, without elaborating. It said the identities of the three were so far not confirmed, but it was “checking the possibility” that one of the three was Sinwar.

Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He was chosen as the group’s top leader following the assassination of Ismael Haniyeh in July in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran.

German military says it intercepted drone off Lebanese coast

BERLIN — The German military says a German navy ship deployed to the U.N. peacekeeping mission off the Lebanese coast has intercepted and brought down a drone.

The military said a defense system on board the corvette, the Ludwigshafen am Rhein, brought the drone down in the water around 5 a.m. Thursday and that the drone’s explosive load detonated in the process.

It said it did not know where the drone came from. The military didn’t specify the location of the ship at the time of the incident.

The Ludwigshafen am Rhein is currently participating in the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon. Germany also has soldiers at the mission’s headquarters in Naqoura.

Norwegian embassy in Beirut evacuated after receiving bomb threat

OSLO, Norway — Norway's foreign ministry says the Norwegian Embassy in Beirut has been evacuated after receiving a “bomb threat.” No one has been injured.

A spokeswoman said Thursday that the few Norwegian diplomats in Beirut are all safe.

“The acts of war in Lebanon make the security situation very unpredictable and tense. This threat is another example of that,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ragnhild Simenstad said.

“The Foreign Ministry is continuously assessing the situation, including the safety of our colleagues who work in Beirut. The embassy has already implemented measures, as we have routines for in situations like this."

Strike on Gaza school-turned-shelter kills at least 15

An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including four children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the school.

The strike hit the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.