Attention to the Unseen

Middle East Eye reports: Israeli analysts say the assassination of Yahya Sinwar is unlikely to bring Israel’s war on Gaza to an end and will likely put the 101 hostages held in the enclave in even greater danger. There has been speculation that the Hamas leaders’ killing has left an opportunity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under American pressure, to declare victory, strike a ceasefire deal and bring the hostages home. This might have been possible several months ago, but…

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Matthew Duss writes: The death of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was believed to be the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, provides a new opening for the United States to meaningfully push for a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza and for the de-escalation of violence across the Middle East. While Mr. Sinwar was far from alone in resisting an agreement — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly and openly undermined cease-fire efforts for months —…

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Edo Konrad writes: Halfway into our conversation, Oren Persico makes a startling confession. The veteran Israeli journalist, whose job for the better half of the last two decades has been to monitor his country’s media, doesn’t watch mainstream Israeli news. “I just can’t do it,” Persico, who has worked as a staff writer for the Israeli media watchdog site The Seventh Eye since 2006, tells me. “It’s depressing and infuriating — it’s propaganda, it’s full of lies. Mostly, it’s a…

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Politico reports: Donald Trump blamed Russia’s war on Ukraine on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — an escalation of a pattern of sympathetic rhetoric toward the war’s aggressor, Russian President Vladimir Putin. “He should never have let that war start. The war’s a loser,” Trump said, referring to Zelenskyy, on a podcast with conservative commentator Patrick Bet-David published Thursday. The former president added that President Joe Biden had “instigated that war,” which he has repeatedly maintained “would never have happened” if…

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Julian Borger writes: In the end, after a year-long, multi-agency manhunt involving the latest technology, Israel’s best special forces and American assistance, Yahya Sinwar appears to have been killed by regular soldiers who had stumbled into him and had no idea whom they had killed. According to the initial reports, they were not there on an assassination operation and had no prior intelligence that they could be in the vicinity of the elusive Hamas leader, architect of the 7 October…

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The Guardian reports: Counter-terrorism police are investigating whether Russian spies planted an incendiary device on a plane to Britain which later caught fire at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham, the Guardian can reveal. Nobody was reported injured in the fire on 22 July at a warehouse in the suburb of Minworth that handles parcels for delivery, and the blaze was dealt with by the local fire brigade and staff. The parcel is believed to have arrived at the DHL warehouse…

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Reuters reports: An Israeli airstrike destroyed the municipal headquarters in a major town in south Lebanon on Wednesday, killing 16 people including the mayor, in the biggest attack on an official Lebanese state building since the Israeli air campaign began. Lebanese officials denounced the attack, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel’s campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state. The Israelis “intentionally…

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