With Hamas leader Sinwar dead, what now?
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 October 2024
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar dead, what now for the conflict in Gaza? An Israeli minister tells us it brings a hostage release closer, but in its first statement since the killing, Hamas sounds defiant. One close observer of the group tells us that the Israeli Prime Minister will not get his way.
We hear reaction from across the region and from the US.
Also in the programme: South Korea's intelligence service confirms the transfer of thousands of North Korean troops to Russia, to help fight Ukraine.
(IMAGE: A person holds a sign with a reference to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, after Israeli military said they have killed him, as families and supporters of hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, protest to demand their immediate release, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 17, 2024 / CREDIT: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour. It's coming to live from the BBC World Service |
| 0:07.5 | studios in Central London. I'm Tim Franks. This time yesterday, exactly this time yesterday yesterday we were getting first reports that the Israeli military |
| 0:17.8 | was checking whether its soldiers had indeed killed their number one |
| 0:22.0 | target in Gaza. |
| 0:23.6 | It didn't take long for confirmation to come. |
| 0:26.2 | Yachya Sinwa, the leader of Hamas had been killed after a firefight in the south of the |
| 0:31.2 | Strip. |
| 0:32.2 | He was one of the most powerful leaders Hamas has ever had, |
| 0:35.8 | the man who'd orchestrated the October 7th massacre of Israelis that had then precipitated |
| 0:41.2 | the overwhelming Israeli response |
| 0:44.1 | in which the Israeli military has laid waste to so much of Gaza |
| 0:47.4 | and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. |
| 0:50.0 | Events which have now led to war being unleashed in Lebanon and the possibility of further direct clashes between Israel and Iran. |
| 0:58.0 | We had several people come on air yesterday to say this would be not could be but would be a turning point. |
| 1:06.6 | If that's the case the question remains how. |
| 1:10.3 | It feels like a very big moment but working out what it presages that is more difficult and it's what we'll spend a fair bit of time trying to do today |
| 1:18.0 | Let's begin with our correspondent in Jerusalem we're at Davis and and we're before we start trying to conjure with those bigger questions, |
| 1:25.3 | there have been some intriguing details that have been released through statements and |
| 1:31.8 | through videos and so forth about Yachya Sinwa's final moment. through It appears that this operation in which the Hamas leader was killed was quite a big operation. |
| 1:45.9 | It may not have been a targeted assassination in that they didn't know where he was, but when |
| 1:52.1 | they came across this house in southern Gaza in which it transpired, |
| 1:56.6 | Sinwa eventually was hiding with two other people. |
... |
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