Topics: Death of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar
1045 AEST
18 October 2024
Laura Jayes: The top story around the world right now is the death of Yahya Sinwar. He is the head of Hamas and the mastermind behind the October 7 attacks. The IDF have killed him, not in an airstrike but in a ground operation in southern Gaza. Joining me now is the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Birmingham. Simon, thanks so much for your time. We’ve seen a statement from Anthony Albanese welcoming this news this morning, also saying that there should be more humanitarian aid into Gaza, there should be a return of hostages and now potentially a ceasefire. Do you agree with that sentiment?
Simon Birmingham: Good morning. LJ. The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar sees a vicious flame of terrorism extinguished in the Middle East. He was responsible, of course, for the October 7 attacks, but not just those Israeli and Jewish deaths, but because the way in which Hamas hides itself amongst and beneath innocent Palestinians he also takes and shares responsibility for the tragedy that so many Palestinians in Gaza have faced over the course of the last year. Hopefully his death can be a turning point and we would love to see Hamas agree to release all hostages, to surrender its remaining terrorist infrastructure and create the environment for a ceasefire and steps towards peace and greater peace in the Middle East, and the opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians to find the type of security where they can live in that type of peace and secure environment that all would wish for.
Laura Jayes: Yahya Sinwar is just one man. Hamas is an ideology. Is it naive to think that this death can change anything significant in Gaza?
Simon Birmingham: What we have certainly seen is that many of the terrorist leaders in Hamas and Hezbollah have been eliminated in recent times and clearly that does have an impact on the capacity of those organisations. But there obviously needs to be a concerted effort as to what comes next, in terms of how you provide stability and provide for the type of security guarantees that are necessary to secure a lasting peace. It’s why we’ve been so critical of some of the naive statements from the Albanese Government, looking to have a premature approach to a two-state solution, when what is really necessary is the stabilisation of the Palestinian territories, the reform of the Palestinian Authority, security guarantees to be achieved so that Israelis and Palestinians alike can live with confidence next to one another, that there will be peace and security, and of course, difficult issues like agreed borders and rights of return to be settled as well.
Laura Jayes: So, you’ve seen the statement from Anthony Albanese today. In that order, he says, the return of hostages, more humanitarian support and potentially a ceasefire. Do you agree or disagree with any of that?
Simon Birmingham: Well, we would wish to see all of those things, but how they are achieved matters. So, when it comes to a ceasefire, how it is achieved in a manner that doesn’t enable Hamas to rearm and regroup, and even with the death of Yahya Sinwar we see it occurred in a situation where Israeli soldiers were confronting Hamas fighters, armed Hamas fighters still active in Gaza demonstrating the existing and remaining capabilities of that terrorist organisation. So, the desire to remove that is a genuine one and an understandable one from Israel, and how that is achieved is important and its why Hamas should release hostages, should surrender the terrorist infrastructure for the sake of the Palestinian people, as much as anyone else, to bring about a ceasefire and to achieve those changes. I said in relation to humanitarian aid earlier this week that obviously the US, with their intelligence, their analysis, and the calls they’ve made, particularly for humanitarian assistance to flow into northern areas of Gaza, that we would urge Israeli authorities to heed those calls, and they should to ensure that innocent individuals have that type of humanitarian assistance that is necessary in such difficult circumstances.
Laura Jayes: It’s not insignificant that he was in Rafah in southern Gaza. We’ve seen Israel, at the beginning of this war, urge Palestinians to move further south as they bombed the north. Then those airstrikes came in the south because they maintained that there were Hamas fighters there. We’ve seen a lot of collateral damage. We’ve seen innocents killed – among them thousands of children. Does this death of Yahya and the fact that he was discovered in Rafah justify that?
Simon Birmingham: Well, his death and the fact that it occurred in a fight with Hamas operatives in Rafah does demonstrate the breadth and reach of Hamas and their willingness to hide beneath and amongst innocent Palestinian civilians. As, of course so many people did flee to the south, it is clear that what has occurred is that Hamas operatives and leadership equally moved to hide amongst those innocent individuals, and that this is a repeated action that we’ve seen. We shouldn’t forget that Hamas’ underground network in Gaza is vast, estimated to be bigger than the New York subway system, estimated to go down in instances some six stories below the ground. This is a huge capability that Hamas has taken funding expected to go to the Palestinian people, but instead used it to build these terrorist capabilities to commit the atrocities of October 7, to present this ongoing threat to Israel and what has made this conflict and this war so tragic and so bloody.
Laura Jayes: It has. Senator, thank you so much for your time, as always, we’ll see you next week.
Simon Birmingham: Thanks LJ.
[ENDS]