A screengrab shows according to the Israeli Army, Hamas Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar, taken from a handout video, released Dec/ 17, 2023. Photo: Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas‘s Gaza chief and the younger brother of the Palestinian terrorist group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Yahya Sinwar, had been killed.

Mohammad Sinwar had been the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza earlier this month and Netanyahu said on May 21 that it was likely he was dead.

The Israeli leader announced that Sinwar had been “eliminated” in an address to the Israeli parliament as he listed off names of other Hamas officials that Israel had killed over the past 20 months, including Sinwar‘s brother Yahya.

“In the last two days we have been in a dramatic turn towards a complete defeat of Hamas,” he said, adding that Israel was also “taking control of food distribution,” a reference to a new aid distribution system in Gaza managed by a US-backed group.

Hamas has yet to confirm Sinwar‘s death.

Netanyahu‘s announcement comes as the Israeli military has intensified its war campaign in Gaza after a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Israel has said it aims to dismantle Hamas‘s governing and military capabilities and secure the release of hostages that are still held in Gaza.

The war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists stormed out of Gaza, rampaging through southern Israeli communities and killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

More than 250 were captured and taken as hostages into Gaza.

Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir on May 26 said Hamas had lost many assets, including its command-and-control center.

Sinwar was elevated to the top ranks of the Palestinian terrorist group last year after Israel killed his brother Yahya in combat.

Yahya Sinwar masterminded the October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war, now in its 20th month, and was later named the overall leader of the group after Israel killed his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, June 11, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran may pause uranium enrichment if the US releases frozen Iranian funds and recognizes Tehran’s right to refine uranium for civilian use under a “political deal” that could lead to a broader nuclear accord, two Iranian official sources said.

The sources, close to the negotiating team, said on Wednesday a “political understanding with the United States could be reached soon” if Washington accepted Tehran’s conditions. One of the sources said the matter “has not been discussed yet” during the talks with the United States.

The sources told Reuters that under this arrangement, Tehran would halt uranium enrichment for a year, ship part of its highly enriched stock abroad or convert it into fuel plates for civilian nuclear purposes.

A temporary pause to enrichment would be a way to overcome an impasse over clashing red lines after five rounds of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to resolve a decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.

US officials have repeatedly said that any new nuclear deal with Iran – to replace a failed 2015 accord between Tehran and six world powers – must include a commitment to scrap enrichment, viewed as a potential pathway to developing nuclear bombs.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly denied such intentions, saying it wants nuclear energy only for civilian purposes, and has publicly rejected Washington’s demand to scrap enrichment as an attack on its national sovereignty.

In Washington, a US official told Reuters the proposal aired by the Iranian sources had not been brought to the negotiating table to date. The US State Department and Iran‘s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this article.

The Iranian sources said Tehran would not agree to dismantling of its nuclear program or infrastructure or sealing of its nuclear installations as demanded by US President Donald Trump’s administration.

Instead, they said, Trump must publicly recognize Iran‘s sovereign right to enrichment as a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and authorize a release of Iranian oil revenues frozen by sanctions, including $6 billion in Qatar.

Iran has not yet been able to access the $6 billion parked in a Qatar bank that was unfrozen under a US-Iranian prisoner swap in 2023, during US President Joe Biden’s administration.

“Tehran wants its funds to be transferred to Iran with no conditions or limitations. If that means lifting some sanctions, then it should be done too,” the second source said.

The sources said the political agreement would give the current nuclear diplomacy a greater chance to yield results by providing more time to hammer out a consensus on hard-to-bridge issues needed for a permanent treaty.

“The idea is not to reach an interim deal, it would (rather) be a political agreement to show both sides are seeking to defuse tensions,” said the second Iranian source.

Western diplomats are skeptical of chances for US-Iranian reconciliation on enrichment. They warn that a temporary political agreement would face resistance from European powers unless Iran displayed a serious commitment to scaling back its nuclear activity with verification by the UN nuclear watchdog.

Even if gaps over enrichment narrow, lifting sanctions quickly would remain difficult. The US favors phasing out nuclear-related sanctions while Iran demands immediate removal of all US-imposed curbs that impair its oil-based economy.

Asked whether critical US sanctions, reimposed since 2018 when Trump withdrew Washington from the 2015 pact, could be rescinded during an enrichment pause, the first source said: “There have been discussions over how to lift the sanctions during the five rounds of talks.”

Dozens of Iranian institutions vital to Iran‘s economy, including its central bank and national oil company, have been sanctioned since 2018 for, according to Washington, “supporting terrorism or weapons proliferation.”

Iran‘s clerical establishment is grappling with mounting crises – energy and water shortages, a plunge in the value of its currency, losses among regional militia proxies in wars with Israel, and growing fears of an Israeli strike on its nuclear sites – all exacerbated by Trump’s hardline stance.

Trump’s revival of a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran since he re-entered the White House in January has included tightened sanctions and threats to bomb Iran if current negotiations yield no deal.

Iranian officials told Reuters last week that Tehran’s leadership “has no better option” than a new deal to avert economic chaos at home that could jeopardize clerical rule.

Nationwide protests over social repression and economic hardship in recent years met with harsh crackdowns but exposed the Islamic Republic’s vulnerability to public discontent and drew more Western sanctions over human rights violations.

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Illustrative: Smoke rises in the sky following US-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adel Al Khader

Israel said it had struck Houthi targets including the last remaining plane used by the internationally designated terrorist group at Sanaa international airport, after the Yemeni militants launched missiles toward Israel a day earlier.

The General Director of Sanaa International Airport, Khaled al-Shaief, said in a post on his X account that the strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport.

The airport is the largest in Yemen and came back into service last week after temporary repairs and runway restoration following previous Israeli strikes.

It was mainly being used by UN aircraft and the plane destroyed in the latest Israeli strikes. Three other Yemenia Airways planes were destroyed in an attack earlier this month.

“This is a clear message and a direct continuation of the policy we have established: whoever fires at the State of Israel will pay a heavy price,” Israel‘s defense ministry said in a statement.

The Houthis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” a regional alliance that includes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis control territory where about 60 percent of Yemen’s population resides.

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the group has fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea in what it says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired towards Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.

The US also launched intensified strikes against the Houthis this year, before halting the campaign after the Houthis agreed to stop attacks on US ships.

In a statement on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any harm directed at Israel will be met with greater force.

“But, as I have said more than once, the Houthis are only the symptom. The main driving force behind them is Iran, which is responsible for the aggression emanating from Yemen,” Netanyahu said.

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