GAZA, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli army has inflicted heavy losses on Hamas by killing its leader Yahya Sinwar, but it will not lead to the group's collapse, a Hamas official and Palestinian analysts have said.
Despite the fact that the Israeli army killed Sinwar, "it will never kill or end the Palestinian resistance of the Hamas movement as it adopts an ideology of resisting the Israeli occupation who steals our land and kills our people over decades," Mahmoud Mirdawi, a Türkiye-based senior Hamas official, told Xinhua.
Over decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most of the Palestinian movement leaders were assassinated while in office, including Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, Salah Shehade, Ibrahim al-Makadmeh, and most recently, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.
"After each assassination, Hamas became stronger, more determined and more capable of confronting the occupier by inventing new means of resistance, and this time too it will succeed in doing so," Mirdawi said.
Hamas confirmed on Friday the death of Sinwar. It came after the Israeli army said on Thursday that its soldiers killed Sinwar in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip.
Samer Enbitawi, a Nablus-based Palestinian political analyst, said Hamas has surely suffered heavy losses from Sinwar's death, which would lead to weakness of the movement.
"But it does not mean that Hamas will collapse forever. Israel, by its war, has created a whole generation of Palestinians, especially children and teenagers, who will grow up and seek revenge against it over its crimes against their families, lands and even future," Enbitawi told Xinhua.
He added that these movements are ideological and are not solely governed by a single individual.
As for what would come next for Hamas leadership, Enbitawi explained that "It will not be easy to select a new successor for Sinwar, mainly as Israel would kill him as it did with Hassan Nasrallah's successor in Lebanon."
Enbitawi believes that Hamas may choose its new political bureau chief without announcing his name until recovers its power, which would take months or maybe after the war in Gaza.
Sufian Abu Zaida, a former Palestinian minister, told Xinhua that "the assassinations of Palestinian leaders have previously proven that they will not change the behavior of the Palestinian people or their movements."
"I think that Hamas will not change its behavior and ideology ... After every assassination, new leaders emerge, and Hamas has demonstrated its ability to recover and introduce new leadership from one generation to another," he added.
Despite Sinwar's death, Hamas has maintained a firm stance towards Israel. In a statement on Friday, Hamas said the hostages in the Gaza Strip "will not return unless the aggression on Gaza stops, the withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from it, and our heroic prisoners are released from the occupation prisons."
Meanwhile, Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement that the resistance "will continue and escalate until the legitimate goals of our people are achieved."
On the ceasefire talk with Israel, Adnan Samara, a Ramallah-based political analyst, said, "Hamas will not accept any flexibility in the negotiations regarding the hostages in Gaza. It may suspend the negotiations until the end of the year at least and turns the tables on Israel to prevent it from achieving the image of victory." ■
