TEL AVIV: Some Israelis felt relief with the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, even as the fate of nearly 100 hostages in Gaza still stirred anxiety.
Israeli authorities long accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack, the deadliest in the country’s history.
Hamas militants overran portions of southern Israel, shooting people, storming military bases and attacking a music festival where they killed at least 370 people.
It was an unprecedented attack that deeply shook the country.
For some, the killing of the October 7 architect brought some closure following a year of fighting in the Gaza Strip.
“It’s like closing the circle, bringing things full circle,” Dolev, a 29-year-old Tel Aviv resident, told AFP, asking to use only a single name.
“It feels like we’ve finished what we set out to do, and I hope this will also lead to an end,” he added, though since late September Israel has also been fighting on another front, with intensified air strikes and troops on the ground in Lebanon against Hamas ally Hezbollah.
“I hope it will lead to the end of the war, the return of the hostages, and for quieter days,” Dolev said.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures that includes hostages killed in captivity.
Militants took 251 people hostage during the attack. Ninety-seven remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
The war triggered an Israeli military retaliation that has killed at least 42,500 people in Gaza, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN has acknowledged as reliable.
As the military targeted Hamas fighters and leaders while searching for any sign of Sinwar, the war reduced large parts of the Palestinian territory to rubble.
Israeli commanders believed Sinwar hid in the maze of tunnels Hamas built beneath Gaza, while Israeli media had reported he was likely to be surrounded by hostages.
But when the Hamas chief was finally cornered and killed by the Israeli army, he was above ground with just two other fighters and no captives in sight, the military said.
Following the announcement of Sinwar’s death, Israelis along with leaders from across the West called on Israel to seize the moment to leverage a deal to release the remaining captives.
“To be honest, I only thought about the hostages, whether this will help move any deal forward, if there will now be a way to bring them back, or if, on the contrary, this is pushing a deal further away,” said Sharon Sborovsky, 31, from Tel Aviv.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met earlier Friday to discuss the aftermath of Sinwar’s death, including the fate of the hostages.
A statement released by the president’s office said that “a significant window of opportunity opened — including the promotion of the return of the hostages and the elimination of Hamas.”
Later in the day, Hamas said it had no plans to release the hostages until Israel ends its “aggression against our people in Gaza,” withdraws from the territory and frees jailed Palestinians.
And while the death of Sinwar marked a milestone in the war, many Israelis were not yet ready to celebrate.
“It is nice to have killed the leader of Hamas,” said Yonatan, a 34-year-old resident of Haifa.
“But we hope that all the hostages will come back, then we can start the party.”
Relief, anxiety in Israel after Sinwar’s killing
https://arab.news/4krwy
Relief, anxiety in Israel after Sinwar’s killing
- “It’s like closing the circle, bringing things full circle,” Dolev, a 29-year-old Tel Aviv resident, told AFP
- “To be honest, I only thought about the hostages, whether this will help move any deal forward, if there will now be a way to bring them back,” said Sharon Sborovsky
Famed Jerusalem stone still sells despite economic woes
- Quarries account for 4.5% of Palestinian GDP and employ nearly 20,000 workers
- Palestinian Authority, which exercises partial civilian control over some of the West Bank, is on the brink of bankruptcy
SAIR, West Bank: Despite the catastrophic state of the Palestinian economy, Faraj Al-Atrash, operator of a quarry in the occupied West Bank, proudly points to an armada of machines busy eating away at sheer walls of dusty white rock that stretch into the distance.
“This here is considered the main source of revenue for the entire region,” Atrash said at the site near the town of Beit Fajjar, close to the city of Hebron.
The quarry is a source of Jerusalem stone, the famed pale rock used throughout the Holy Land and beyond for millennia and which gives much of the region its distinctive architectural look. But Atrash, in his fifties, said “our livelihood is constantly under threat.”
“Lately, I feel like the occupation (Israel) has begun to fight us on the economic front,” he said.
Atrash fears the confiscation of the quarry’s industrial equipment, the expansion of Israeli settlements and the Palestinian financial crisis.
The Palestinian territories are “currently going through the most severe economic crisis ever recorded,” according to a UN report.
“There are problems with exports and market access because we used to export most of the stone to Israel, and after the Gaza war begun, we ran into difficulties,” explained Ibrahim Jaradat, whose family has owned a quarry for more than 40 years near Sair, also near Hebron.
Public services are functioning worse than ever, Atrash said, adding that fixed costs such as water and electricity had soared.
Quarries account for 4.5 percent of Palestinian GDP and employ nearly 20,000 workers, according to the Hebron Chamber of Commerce.
Around 65 percent of exports are destined for the Israeli market, where some municipalities mandate the use of Jerusalem stone. “The people who buy the stones from us to resell them to construction sites are mostly Israelis,” said Abu Walid Riyad Gaith, a 65-year-old quarry operator. He lamented a lack of solidarity from Arab countries, which he said do not buy enough of the rock.
Most of the roughly 300 quarries in the West Bank are located in Area C, land which falls under full Israeli authority and covers the vast majority of its settlements.
“Many (Israeli) settlers pass through here, and if Israel annexes Palestine, it will start with these areas,” said one operator.
The physical demands of working in a quarry are intense, but for many Palestinians there are few other options as the West Bank’s economy wilts.
“We are working ourselves to death,” Atrash said, pointing to his ten laborers moving back and forth in monumental pits where clouds of dust coat them in a white film.
In the neighboring quarry, blinking and coughing as he struggled with the intense work was a former geography teacher.
With the Palestinian Authority’s budget crisis meaning he was no longer receiving his salary, he had looked for work in the only local place still hiring.
All the laborers said they suffered from back, eye and throat problems. “We call it white gold,” said Laith Derriyeh, employed by a stonemason, “because it normally brings in substantial amounts of money. But today everything is complicated; it’s very difficult to think about the future.”
He added: “People have no money, and those who do are afraid to build,” he added.
