Netanyahu claims that Israel has "eliminated" the Hamas leader.

BarcelonaIsraeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu claimed victory in his fight against Hamas on Wednesday, saying the Israeli army had "eliminated" the Islamist organization's new leader, Mohamed Sinwar, who was the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the previous leader, who was assassinated in October. At his press conference last week, Netanyahu announced that Sinwar had "probably" been killed in a military operation, but official confirmation was pending, which came this Wednesday.

Mohamed Sinwar was the target of an Israeli attack on a hospital in southern Gaza earlier this month. "We have eliminated Mohamed Deif, (Ismail) Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and Mohamed Sinwar," Netanyahu said Wednesday in the Israeli Parliament. "In the last two days, we have made a dramatic turn toward a complete defeat of Hamas," he added.

Hamas has yet to confirm the death of Sinwar, who was reportedly elevated to the top ranks of the Palestinian militant group last year after Israel killed his brother. Yahya Sinwar was the mastermind of the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and was appointed the group's overall leader after Israel killed his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran.

In the same Knesset appearance, Netanyahu added that Israel was also "taking control of food distribution," a reference to the new aid distribution system in Gaza run by a US-backed group. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US-based organization that Israel has entrusted with distributing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip, said it was continuing deliveries of basic commodities that have provided food to 80,000 people. Reuters had wrongly reported that the foundation had stopped the distribution because of the yesterday's "riots" when security forces fired on the crowd desperately rushing for foodShortly after, the agency announced that it was removing the information, which had been extracted from a Facebook account belonging to the foundation and which had turned out to be fake.

On Tuesday, on the first day of distribution, hundreds of people jumped over the protective fences and broke into the Rafah aid distribution areas of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, made up of former US military personnel, private security companies and humanitarian workers, controlled by the United States and Israel. The Israeli army responded with live fire to disperse the hungry crowds trying to get food.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, the chaos resulted in the death of a 19-year-old boy and 48 other people were injured. Al Jazeera, however, reported 10 deaths in two days of aid distribution due to gunfire at Palestinians trying to grab it. The Israeli army stated in a statement that only warning shots had been fired, while the authorities in the Strip claim they fired at civilians. "The employment forces [...] have opened live fire at starving civilians who were lured to these locations under the pretext of receiving aid: desperate individuals driven by extreme hunger," they say in their statement.

At a World Food Programme (WFP) distribution point in Deir Al Balah, two people also died in the crush of people trying to access food, according to a statement from the WFP. "Humanitarian needs are out of control after 80 days of a total blockade of all food assistance in Gaza," the statement said.

The head of the United Nations Human Rights Office in the Palestinian Territories, Ajith Sunghay, confirmed this Wednesday that 47 people were injured in yesterday's incidents, and stated that it is "a very clear example of the danger of distributing food in the circumstances in which the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is doing so." The UN has refused to collaborate with this organization, accusing it of a lack of neutrality, and warns that it could lead to forced displacement. The governments of the United States and Israel have justified the concentration of basic assistance deliveries at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to prevent Hamas from stealing the aid.

Israel has once again allowed the entry of humanitarian aid, albeit in very insufficient quantities, after maintaining a blockade of more than three months that has further aggravated the enormous humanitarian crisis already suffered by the Palestinian enclave. It is in this context of desperation and hunger that Tuesday's riots occurred, the first day in which civilians had direct access to Basic foodstuffs.

Palestinian Permanent Representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, expressed his sense of helplessness and indignation during his speech to the Security Council, where he urged action to halt Israeli attacks on civilians. "It's unbearable. How can this horror be tolerated?" he lamented, weeping.