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‘A Symbolic Achievement’: Haniyeh’s Death a Blow to Hamas, But Will Not Change Terror Group Significantly, Analysts Say
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh speaks during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, March 26, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The assassination of exiled Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has sent shock waves through the Palestinian terrorist organization and the broader Middle East but, on its own, is unlikely to undermine the Islamist group’s stability in the long term, analysts say.
Haniyeh, who as the terror group’s political chief is known for his role in recent Gaza ceasefire negotiations, was killed in Tehran early Wednesday morning by the “Zionist entity,” according to both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hamas. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the assassination. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was not involved in Haniyeh’s elimination, only commenting that pursuing an immediate ceasefire was “imperative.”
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the terror group remained unfettered by Haniyeh’s death. “We are waging an open war to liberate Jerusalem and are ready to pay any price,” Abu Zuhri said. “Hamas is a concept and an institution and not persons. Hamas will continue on this path regardless of the sacrifices and we are confident of victory.”
Ibrahim Madhoun, an analyst closely affiliated with Hamas, underscored the terror group’s history of recovering from similar losses, having endured the assassinations of various political and military leaders in the past. It “came out of those scenarios stronger,” Madhoun told The New York Times.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to the prime minister of Israel, said that Haniyeh’s assassination was mostly symbolic.
“Hanieyh will be replaced within 48 hours, maybe by [Moussa] Abu Marzouk, or Khaled Mashal,” Amidror said in a call with The Algemeiner and other outlets.
“It is a symbolic action to make clear to everyone that Israel is ready to act whenever they can,” he added. “It says something about the determination of Israel to get rid of its enemies.”
Hamas’ Gaza-based chief Yahya Sinwar was a “much more important” target, Amidror said, that would have far-reaching repercussions on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, said Haniyeh’s assassination was a part of a plan to kill “all those who were involved in the Oct. 7 attack and the killing, burning, beheading, raping, of our citizens.”
Hamas launched the ongoing war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, when the Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 hostages to Gaza. Sinwar has been widely considered the mastermind of the attack.
Yadlin pointed out that the assassination occurred in Iran rather than Qatar, emphasizing that the choice was likely made to avoid jeopardizing ongoing hostage negotiations.
“Israel doesn’t want to open a new front with Doha,” he said, referring to Qatar’s role in mediating ongoing ceasefire negotiations. For years, Qatar has hosted senior Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, who reportedly lived there in luxury.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei expressed outrage over Wednesday’s killing, vowing retaliation. In a statement released by the state-run IRNA news agency, Khamenei described the incident as a “martyrdom” inflicted by the “criminal and terrorist Zionist regime.” He vowed that Iran would impose a “harsh punishment” in response to the killing of Haniyeh, whom he referred to as a “beloved guest.”
Iran is the chief international sponsor of Hamas, providing the terror group with weapons, funding, and training. Haniyeh has traveled to Iran multiple times since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, including in May when he delivered a eulogy for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at a funeral.
The Hamas political chief was in Iran this week meeting with Khamenei and other top regime officials and participated on Tuesday in the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Despite being more directly involved in Hamas’ political affairs than its military operations, Haniyeh was placed on the US State Department’s Specially Designated Global Terrorists list in 2018.
“Haniyeh has close links with Hamas’ military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians,” the department said at the time while announcing his terror designation. “He has reportedly been involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Hamas has been responsible for an estimated 17 American lives killed in terrorist attacks.”
Haniyeh’s killing occurred after Israel conducted an airstrike in Beirut, eliminating Fuad Shukr, whom it identified as the military commander of Hezbollah’s terrorist operations.
Yadlin said that Iran, and its proxy Hezbollah, would take time before responding, and said that the response would be measured because they were not interested in igniting a full-scale war. “I can see them trying to attack Israelis in the global arena, like embassies and tourists, as they have done in the past,” he said.
Mohammad Dahlan, former senior official from the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah movement and PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ main rival, condemned the “cowardly” assassination of Haniyeh, who he called a “great national leader.”
According to Amidror, Israel had more than a year to complete its campaign of destroying Hamas in Gaza. Another three months of intense conflict were required to eliminate the remaining battalions, primarily based in Rafah, he said, followed by a year of operations to “clean up” the remnants of the terror group in the rest of Gaza. This would involve routine raids into the Palestinian enclave, similar to those conducted in the West Bank during the Second Intifada.
“We’re at the end of the beginning,” he said.
The post ‘A Symbolic Achievement’: Haniyeh’s Death a Blow to Hamas, But Will Not Change Terror Group Significantly, Analysts Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Holocaust Survivor Marian Turski Dies Aged 98

Marian Turski speaks on the occasion of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw, Poland, April 19, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
Holocaust survivor Marian Turski, who became a journalist in Poland and headed an international committee of Auschwitz survivors, has died at the age of 98, said the Polish weekly magazine Polityka, where he worked as a columnist.
In an article on Tuesday announcing Turski‘s death, Polityka described him as “an exceptional guardian of memory, an outstanding man whose voice was heard all over the world.”
Born as Moshe Turbowicz on June 26, 1926, in Druskieniki, in what is now Lithuania, Turski was sent to the Lodz ghetto at the age of 14.
In 1944 he was transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, where both his father and brother died.
In 1945 he survived two death marches, firstly from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, and then from Buchenwald to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by the Soviet Red Army.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in gas chambers or from starvation, cold, and disease at Auschwitz, where most had been brought in freight wagons, packed like livestock.
After World War Two Turski lived in Lower Silesia, southern Poland, before moving to Warsaw, where he worked as a historian and journalist. He started working at Polityka in 1958 and was the author of several books.
He was made an honorary citizen of Warsaw in 2018, in part as recognition for his work in setting up the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the city.
In January, Turski gave a speech at the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in which he warned against rising antisemitism.
“We see in the modern world today a great increase in antisemitism, and it was antisemitism that led to the Holocaust,” he said.
“Let us not be afraid to convince ourselves that we can solve problems between neighbors.”
Over 3 million of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
In all, between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically killed 6 million Jews across German-occupied Europe, along with gypsies, sexual minorities, disabled people, and others who offended Nazi ideas of racial superiority.
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My Message to Donald Trump: The Jews Need You

US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
What happens when the past starts to look dangerously like the present? The hate my family fled in the Soviet Union is back, not just in distant countries but in my city, on social media, and even in the political discourse of this country.
My ancestors didn’t survive oppression by being passive. In the Soviet Union, they fought to preserve their identity, even when being Jewish was a crime. Synagogues were destroyed, Hebrew was banned, and Jewish people were persecuted in every aspect of life. Yet, they kept their faith and traditions alive, passing them down secretly, risking everything to do so.
They weren’t just surviving — they were resisting. And that resistance is part of the reason I’m here today.
But now, in 2025, the same struggle is back: the slurs on the subway walls, the antisemitic graffiti at parks, the casual hate directed at Israel. It’s not just words, it’s a message: Jews don’t belong.
After the October 7th Hamas massacre, we saw a spike in antisemitic incidents, and the climate is growing more hostile. This isn’t some far-off problem; it’s here in America, and it’s escalating.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House makes the need for action even more straightforward. Under the Biden administration, antisemitism surged, and yet the response was mostly silence or half-hearted condemnations. Jewish communities were left exposed as attacks increased. This can’t continue.
We need leadership that takes direct, meaningful action to combat antisemitism — not just when it makes headlines, but every day. Now back in office, Trump has the responsibility to prioritize this fight. His words and actions will shape the future of our country, and it’s time to show authentic leadership by actively protecting Jewish communities.
Antisemitism has become normalized in many spaces, and it’s not something we can hope will fade. We need policies that protect Jewish people, enforce stronger laws, and educate against hate speech. This is about more than just rhetoric. It’s about taking action that ensures we are not targeted simply for being who we are.
I hear the slurs, see the symbols, and witness the spread of harmful stereotypes, often with no consequences. Whenever I speak up, it feels like I’m fighting an uphill battle. But I’m not alone.
This is part of a larger fight. We need leaders, not just in my school or community, but in the White House, who will stand against hate and take tangible steps to protect us.
The responsibility to fight antisemitism can’t fall solely on students or Jewish communities — those in power must take it up. President Trump, this is your moment. Do not let this crisis go unaddressed. If you genuinely want to leave a legacy of strength, act now. Make fighting antisemitism a priority.
We must ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. The stakes are too high. We cannot afford to wait for another crisis to occur. If you want to be remembered for more than just words, show the courage to lead the fight against antisemitism.
The writer is a high school student from Great Neck, New York, passionate about advocacy and government. Through his writing and activism, he engages others in meaningful conversations about US politics, international relations, and Israel’s significance as both a homeland for the Jewish people and a key ally of the United States
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CBS’ Margaret Brennan Said ‘Free Speech’ Enabled the Holocaust; She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About

People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
It was bad enough when Whoopi Goldberg of The View infamously said the Holocaust was not about race. On Sunday, Margaret Brennan of CBS’ Face The Nation interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. During the interview, Brennan said, “free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide” in Nazi Germany.
Was it freedom of the press when Nazis shut down the Munich Post, which for a decade had been warning against Hitler and covered the suspicious death of his niece? What about all of Hitler’s critics and enemies — why would they have to flee if there was free speech?
What an actual dictator does is close down free speech to maintain groupthink. Brennan embarrassed herself using the buzzword of “weaponizing” without understanding its meaning, or the fact that it was a lack of freedom of the press that was weaponized to help Hitler conduct a genocide.
In March 1933, Hitler passed the Enabling Act and, in his speech, said that “the entire educational system, the theatre, the cinema, literature, the Press and the wireless, all these very things will be used as a means to this end and valued accordingly. They must all serve for the maintenance of the eternal values present in the essential character of the people.”
So now that we established as of 1933 there was no freedom of the press, how could Brennan claim a “weaponization” of free press caused a genocide? Perhaps, she has no idea of what she is talking about, and she should make an on-air apology if she has not already.
I would not expect that she or Goldberg would have read a book called Mein Kampf. But Hitler wrote: “Again and again our Jewish press has known how to concentrate special hatred on England, and many a good German simpleton has fallen into the Jewish snare with the greatest willingness, drooled about ‘strengthening’ German sea power, protested against the rape of our colonies, recommended their reconquest, and thus helped furnish the material which the Jewish scoundrel could pass on to his fellow Jews in England for practical propogandist use.”
Perhaps Brennan could educate herself by watching a film or play about Sophie Scholl and the White Rose members. Scholl and her compatriots were executed for handing out pamphlets that called for resistance. They declared Hitler was a liar. She was 21 when she was executed. Strange, I don’t see any students today being executed for free speech.
Such reports on national news networks assume that the general public has little knowledge of the Holocaust, which is sadly true. If anyone is weaponizing anything, it is Brennan using scare tactics to try to compare modern day political figures to Hitler, which is a tough comparison to make considering no American leaders have advocated for Jews to be eliminated, whereas Hitler used that terminology and hatred from the very beginning.
Be skeptical any time you hear the phrase “weaponized.” Many podcasts and anti-Israel speakers have tried to ignore antisemitism by saying it is being “weaponized” by Jews. You may also hear that Jews “weaponized” the Holocaust to create the state of Israel.
If Jews, after seeing the horrible genocide, understood the need for a Jewish state — and the countries of the United Nations voted for establishment of Israel due to the savagery of the Holocaust — that is called understanding the consequences of events. It is not called weaponization.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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