The Team House - Israel Kills Yahya Sinwar the Leader of Hamas | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

We talk about the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) Killing of Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza today.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Andy here:https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023https://amilburn.substack.com/https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that. So go out and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Yeah. Hey, everybody. We're live. Big News today with the IDF taking out Yaya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza. Of course, I'm here with Andy.

Jason Lyons isn't here. He's got a real job and real responsibilities unlike us. Thanks, thanks, Deem, implicit comment. No problem. Yeah, so some wild news. It seems like it wasn't even a targeted attack. It seems like it was just got lucky and got the right guy, which is great. Yeah, it's a really interesting story, actually, D,

because the guys who killed essentially a fire team, the soldiers who killed Yao Ya, Sinwa were conventional soldiers. They were a fire team, you know, about four of them had gone into a building. And they hadn't even expected it to fully clear it. I mean, they went in clearing mode. But the building had been mostly demolished by an airstrike. This was on, it was Wednesday, Wednesday, Israeli time.

And the interesting thing is, as I said, these soldiers are conventional. Not only that, but they're from a school. They're part of the IDF's infantry commanders and combat training school. And my apologies to Israeli listeners for butchering the Hebrew here. But they're called the Bislamar Brigade. Bislamak is a Hebrew acronym of the infantry and commanders training school. So when they go to war, when Israel goes to war, they activate the Bislamark Brigade. they empty the, you know, all of these instructors out. And I mean, that's quite a concept, right? Can you

imagine that happening in the United States? We don't because we've got such a massive military. We can maintain our training structure all the way through. But I know the Ukrainians had a lot of problems because they lost all of their training card rate at the beginning of the war and it took them a long time to rebuild them. And the Israelis make no pretense. They know normally until this war, the wars are going to be short. and hopefully decisive. And so all hands go to the pump. You know, manpower is the big thing.

And so these guys went in, they've been in, the Bismarabakh Brigade has been in Khan Yunus, where this happened on and off since March. They replaced the paratroot brigade from the 98th division. And they've, most of the time, it's been relatively quiet. Just, you know, the pattern, maybe contact,

every few days, but nothing really significant until now. And it was just extraordinary that the most sophisticated, arguably, arguably the most sophisticated intelligence assassination machine in the world, scores one of its greatest victories purely by, almost by chance, inadvertently. And it's, I think, you know, remember our conversation last time about the balance between conventional and soft and how the Israelis had to rely heavily on soft. But this is, you know, this is just a reminder that the ordinary ground pounder plays a very important role in common war. Yes, by chance, but nevertheless, it was doing what they do.

So they also found apparently large amounts of Israeli cash and identifying documents on the bodies. They thought at first they might have killed, you know, if they're thinking, what is he doing, here by himself. He wasn't even with, he wasn't around other, there were three, there were three others in the room, three others were killed. I'm sorry, two others. And, and they were his, they were apparently his bodyguards, one of which was an, one of which was an teacher for UNRWA, by the way, which is, oh, wow. Yeah. So, you know, in the initial IDF announcement, they said that we killed him unintentionally. They don't mean they didn't need to kill him.

They mean that it wasn't, you know, it was pure chance without prior intelligence. And we don't know exactly where this occurred, but we do know it's in Khan, Eunice, and that's, you know, in the Bislamacht's training area. So, who is Sinwa, right? And what happens now? Sinwa, Yahya Sinwa,

who has a misleadingly kind of her playful name, he was arguably the most hard line of the hard line for masked leaders. You know, even Hania, even Heneer at one point seemed, well, Hinea was a moderate by comparison. Even Hania mentioned the possibility of a two-state solution one time way back in 2017,

probably, you know, he regretted it. Yeah, it probably feels like a life time ago. You would never have got that out of Sinwa's mouth. He was a uncompromising strategists, and that's a key point. You know, and this is not eulogizing a terrorist, but he was a masterful strategist, and I'll explain a little bit why he was. He was, he combined, I mean, he had a sharp intellect, but he wasn't, you know, he wasn't an orator. He sounded like a thug, I'm told, when he spoke in Arabic, which he was essentially a thug.

But it would be misleading to just, you know, call him a thug and dismiss him because you have to look at the preparation and what he built Hamas into. And it was, you know, arguably among the five Hamas leaders, not arguably. He had the most critical. ability. He was he was recognized as being head of the organization. Perhaps even before, you know, he was elected head of the organization in Hamas back in 2017, just by sheer force of character. You know, he spent 22 years in Israeli prisons. And during that time, he studied his enemy. He enrolled in Open University and I'm laughing a little bit here. But, you know, when we talk about No, enemy, that's what he did. That's what he used his time in prison to do. He learned, he not only learned

Hebrew, he learned about Jewish religion, he learned about the statecraft of Israel, the basis on which it was set up. He learned his interest in learning about his adversary went way beyond military capabilities. And I think among all Hamas leaders, perhaps he had perhaps he had the best understanding of his enemy. He spoke fluent Hebrew. In fact, one of the Shinbet interrogators said that his Hebrew was actually better than his jailers. You know, I mean, it was more educated. You know, I mean, the jailers probably spoke as though they're from, you know, the Israeli version of the Brooklyn.

I knew it was coming. Yeah, whereas he was probably right, you know. Yeah. he'd at least he'd at least uh studied the grammar yeah he enunciated yeah yeah so he his real name not that you know anyone really cares at this time was abu ibrahim which is far more forgettable than yawya singwa and and it's important to know where he came from right he is uh he's actually same age he's a year older than me he was born in uh in kan unis which at at the time back then was a hotbed of Muslim Brotherhood activity.

This was during the 70s and 80s. You know, you don't really think about the Muslim Brotherhood having a hold in Gaza, but it certainly did in that part of Gaza, particularly in those years. And so he was in the Muslim Brotherhood. He was a prominent activist. And just one point about the Muslim Brotherhood. again, not a defense of the Muslim Brotherhood, but you know, you've got to understand the appeal

that an organization like that has in the squalor, you know, deprivation of a refugee camp, right? I mean, it offers, when you've got massive unemployment and everything, the Brotherhood offered an unequivocal message of insurrection as kind of divine destiny, right? The backing of God. And that is what's separated then and then Hamas from secular organizations. organizations like Fata. And that appeal, the religious appeal, really caught on among young Palestinians. You know, it gave some bright direction and self-respect in the refugee camp. And it gave them something other than subsisting of UN handouts. And it's interesting that it was a

social, just like Hezbollah and later Hamas, there was a kind of a social welfare aspect of the Brotherhood, you know, as far as kind of an official unemployment, neighborhood, neighborhood watch, neighborhood support, okay? I'm saying that because it's important to know the appeal that these organizations have and why they have such an appeal. And I would argue, or I don't really need to argue, I think it's pretty that even, you know, guys like you and me just, and Jason, growing up an environment may well have fallen into that. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Certainly. I mean, why not? I mean, we're all Taipei, I hate that term, but we're all activists, right, at heart. All of us, we want to change things. And so you can imagine why, you can see why the Brotherhoods had such an appeal. And then so there was a guy. in the Muslim Brotherhood back then called Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. And Sinwa was smart enough to get in fairly tightly with him.

He gained his confidence and as a Brotherhood loyalist. And that really helped him subsequently. It kind of gave him a halo effect because Yassine headed up Hamas when it was founded in 1987. Remember, Hamas was formed just as the first. Defada was was kicking off. And when the Asin formed Hamas, Sinwa formed a group called Almajid. He's only 25 at the time. And that Al-Majid became infamous for punishing basically anyone who, any,

anyone who committed any kind of infraction. Morality offenses were what Sinwa started with, you know, targeting shops that sold sex videos and hunting. down and killing anyone suspected of collaborating with Israel. And there's more to that later. Sima became, he had a penchant for killing with his own hands, you know, for killing at close quarters and he liked to brag about it. And even in, you know, even his shin bet interrogators say that that came out, you know, rather than a confession, it was almost like he was, he was proud of it. You know, for instance,

since he confessed to punishing a suspected informer by getting the man's brother to bury him alive, finishing their job using a spoon instead of a spade. You know, and he strangled people personally. I mean, not the sort of guy that you want to bring home for tea, but at the same time, he had this curious charisma. He drew people to him. You know, you know these people. I mean, the playground bully, the guy who everyone is afraid of, right?

But there's something, there's some part of them that want to be him too, because he just didn't seem to be afraid of anything. And he showed, you know, his interrogator said he showed no emotion, you know. and he probably, I think he knew he was going to die anyway. I mean, it was just basically no way out for him. And I think he was quite philosophical about it. I mean, he made, and forgive me if I'm misquoting this, but he quoted Hussain Ali saying just a few months ago,

He said there are only two days or when two days, there are two days where you need to, oh, two days where he's talking about death. I'm sorry, there's two days when you come into contact with your destiny. If it is not your time to die, then you have nothing to fear. And basically, if it is your time to die, nothing that you do will save that. So he was kind of a, I mean, he was a fageless. in that sense. But he, so anyway, in 1988, he goes to jail for killing two Israeli soldiers,

for planning the abduction and killing him to Israeli soldiers. And then he was arrested again and, no, he's convicted again for the murder of 12 Palestinians and given four life sentences, right? and this is beginning of his 22 years in prison. But what is strange about this is far from removing him from relevance. His time there, which some of it was in solitary confinement, and all of which was spent studying, it really cemented his position within the organization.

And there were those who argue that when he was released from prison in 2011, he was already kind of the de facto leader of Hamas. And, you know, how did he do that from prison? Well, you've seen the movies, right? I mean, he imposed his authority pretty ruthlessly, punished informers. He positioned himself as a leader among the prisoners, negotiating on their behalf with the, you know, with the Israelis. And basically, you know, enforcing discipline among the inmates.

the the guys who are interrogating him the shin bed there's a guy named Michael Kubi who has spoken about him about Sinai and because of all Israelis there's probably one or two who know him well

one was a journalist who covered Sima I can't remember the guy's name but Kuby was a shinbet agent spent about 150 hours questioning questioning a sinwa. He's insistent that he used no brutal methods, blah, blah, blah. But his, you know, his impression after that time was of someone very brutal, aggressive,

and charismatic at the same time, you know, which is a good description of any, you know, any bad acting leader, really, when you think about it. I mean, something has to draw people into that dark circle when it was his force of personality. So when he was released, this is an interesting part. His brother, we're going to get to this, his brother, Muhammad, was involved in the abduction of an Israeli soldier, Gilat Shilip. And he was captured after a 2006 cross-border raid, cross-border by Hamas.

to Israel and was held by Hamas and Gaza for five years. So Muhammad was behind that. And the Israelis, by the way, have tried to kill him six times. I mean, this was a big, this was a huge humiliation for the Israelis because they, you know, they exchanged a thousand prisoners to include, to include Sinwa, Muhammad's brother, right, as part of this deal. a thousand prisoners. Now, there are those who say that was a very bad precedent because it gave groups like Hamas a goal for taking hostages in terms for exchange because they realized they thought the message that they received was that, you know, they could bargain one

Israeli life for a thousand people. So you think, fast forward, that was Sinwa's message. That's how he was released from jail. What do you think his goal is going to be when he can, you know, when he plans an operation himself? Of course, it's going to involve hostages. because that's because of the Israeli psyche, not a criticism. It's, you know, it's a very, it's a very understandable psyche, and it's not shared by our government, right? Yeah. For kidding. But that's partly why this whole, you know, this whole affair of the hostages of the last year, there's been such a sense of betrayal against the government because many feel that this is not in the ethos of the state of Israel.

to allow these people just to languish. You know, I'm not saying that's what the government did, but that's the impression. For us, as the Americans, it's easy to mirror image and say, yeah, of course, you don't negotiate, but that's not, that's, you know, the Israelis are very, very, very hardcore in a lot of things, but when it comes to getting their people back, it's a, it's central to their, you know, to their ethos.

So, yeah, anyway, when Sinwas, and Sima comes out of jail. He doesn't finish his open university degree, by the way. But, you know, his jailist think he, that wasn't his intent. His intent was to learn rather than to get qualifications. He comes out of jail and he goes right into that, into the enforcing position. You know, in 2015, he kills a guy named Mahmoud Ishtui. Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing it, okay?

and initially for embezzlement, but then for homosexuality as rumors of gay, this guy being involved in gay sex come out. Now, it was an unpleasant, you know, the way they punished him is he was in, they basically imprisoned him on and off, tortured him for a year before finally killing him. And then 2017, that's when, Senoa becomes the elected leader of Hamas and Gaza, but by then, you know, he'd long been considered Hamas as de facto leader, even if, because all the group's political operatives were based in Doha, they held higher official leadership positions, but Sima was the guy in the arena, right? And just by dint of personality, he's a very different personality

than the political leadership in Qatar, right? You know, you think about, you know, we'll talk a little bit. Heenea was, as I mentioned, a relative moderate. And we'll talk about Khaled Marshall, who's the guy who may well replace Sinai. And no one challenged his rule. You know, Ishmael Hanea, head of a Hamas's political bureau, was the nominal leader of the organization, but he deferred all operational decision making to Sinai. And in fact, when it came to 7 October at tax, there are those who say that even Hanea didn't know about all the plans because Sinwa was very, very good at operational security. A little bit more on that. So in 2017, right, that's six years before the attacks on 7 October.

That is when Sinai started to develop this plan. And, you know, as I mentioned, he was a strategist. And he realized that the cycle of rocket attacks and reprisals that, you know, against the Israelis, it kept the pot boiling, but they couldn't be an end in itself. They weren't having any type of strategic effect. And as Israelis, you know, their iron dome system became more effective. And even the cross-border raids, except for the one where Shalit achieved little. So he started to hatch a plan to strike Israel, you know, a debilitating blow, one from which it would never recover. And so, so interestingly enough, in 2021, there was a, there was another flare-up in Gaza.

I think it was like 14 days long, you know, the usual pattern, several hundred. Palestinians killed and a handful of Israelis. Actually, it might have been 2000 back in 2021. Anyway, the interesting thing about that, it was primarily a, you know, exchange of rockets. But the Israelis did go in and conduct limited raids. But it seems now as though that that was kind of a test, you know, is him testing the system. he had, and he was low profile during that time, because he wanted the Israelis to think that he was focused on governance of Gaza, right?

And the Israelis were offering economic incentives. Sinwa had his life saved by an Israeli surgeon while he was in jail. So maybe the Israelis thought that he might have developed a soft spot for them. But not the case. you know, so even back in 2014, sorry to jump around a little bit. Sinwa, Sinwa started talking to Hania. We know about this, about enlisting Iran's support for, you know, an attack. And so from 2014 on, which they were getting massive amount of, well, a large amount of money from Rans,

some $100 million annually in all the years, up to 20. And that was really Sinwa and Hania's doing. And because the rest of the Hamas leadership, Marshall, were opposed to Iran. We're not opposed, but they had pissed Iran off because of their opposition, or their support for the Sunni revolution against Assad in Syria. So Sinwa is the guy who recognized they needed a state sponsor, all right? And that's significant.

Without that, again, they would have, they would still, Hamas would be a 10-part organization. I mean, some might say it still is, but I mean, incapable of launching an attack like it did. And then, you know, all the time, I mean, he's, Simas, despite his gangster appearance and speech, he's, he's fairly sophisticated in the fact that, He continues to deception. In 2018, he gives us a briefing to the international media. You can look at it up online, and he signaled his support for thousands of Palestinians to break through the border fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel as part of peaceful protests, though. Okay?

And then after that, after that, though, he's not foremost in being very bellicose. and the Israelis think that, you know, that he's become a pragmatist. And indeed, he appears to be, you know, he supports temporary ceasefires with Israel, prisoners, and even a reconciliation with the Palestinian Authority, right? Even after they try and kill him in 2018. But all the time, you know, he's getting closer to Iran. And that was quite an achievement itself. You know, a partnership between a Shia country and a Sunni Arab organization is not an obvious one.

Yeah. But both share the same goal to end the state of Israel and liberate Jerusalem. And that's what Sinwa hit upon. And of course, it was part of Soleimani's master plan. It was Sinai who came with a plan, you know, who started. to plan this, the attacks, but he had a deputy who was head of the, the Al-Qasang brigades, Dave, right, who's also dead now. And Dave may have been the only other guy who knew something about, you know, not the whole plan, because no one knew about that until right near the end,

but certainly a lot of the plan and what they were working for, because starting in 20, Starting in 2018, Hamas started to organize exercises, right, training exercises around Gaza. And it wasn't just Hamas. They bought in PIJ and a couple of the other Palestinian groups. And in those exercises, and you can look this up on, I think it's a good BBC article about it and YouTube, some interviews with Hamas for, you know, Hamas members. They were practicing things like reaching fences, destroying tanks, and clearing kibbutzies. So, you know, and they built up, they built this mock kind of training. It's amazing.

They did this under the eyes of the Israelis. They had a training area. It was near the coast and central Gaza. And it was kind of, it was, it was, the ground was below, I mean, it was below ground level. You know, so it wasn't clearly, you couldn't clearly see it unless you were right up on it. It was very well chosen. And they conducted extensive drills there. They did four, at least four major exercises before 7 October.

By that, I mean, you know, once every few months, right? But in between that, there was a lot of other training taking place. you know, even hang glider, hang gliding training, training and operating drones. So all this stuff had to happen under the eyes of the Israelis, right, to put together what became quite a sophisticated, very sophisticated attack. So you can, you know, credit to him in the sense that, no, no credit, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Mark Guy, him and Dave putting all this together.

and all the time, you know, he's convincing Israel that he cares more about ensuring that workers and that the workers in Gaza had access to jobs across the border and had no interest in starting a new war. So, and, and, you know, after the 2021 war, although I, you know, these flare-ups are hardly wars in 2021 battle. It's all part of the same wall. Israel did seek to provide a basic level of economic stability in Gaza, and they offered incentives for thousands of permits for Gazans to go to work in Israel and the West Bank. That was 2021. And then gradually over the last couple of years, 2020, 23, they've started to replace workers from Gaza with workers from Southeast Asia, which may have added to, you know, the kind of the angst building,

the pressure building within Gaza because these jobs were disappearing. And interestingly, too, after 2021, as part of the subterfuge, Hamas refrained for military operations against Israel, very interesting. That Sinwa exerted that kind of control. You know, no one dared do anything. And to explain what a big deal that is, you know, It's kind of a right of passage, right? You know, for a lot of Palestinian youths to do, you know, to appear as to be an activist against what they see as an occupation. But he quelled all of that. And, you know, it's what the Israeli, the head of Shinbet called an unprecedented intelligence tactic to mislead Israel,

making excuses for his own mistakes there. It was, you know, the subterfuge, the deception plan was a strong one. It has to be said that. It's very easy to go back and say, oh, my God, this was so obvious. But things always seem much more obvious afterwards. And you have to look at the context of the time. But he did say, interestingly, at one point that he mentioned hostages. And he, this was, this was like in an internal memo.

And I don't, I don't know how this was. I don't know when it was released. But anyway, he, the point is in it, he talks about the importance of hostage taking to gain bargaining space with the Israelis. And that that should be their goal. So there was, you know, although there was this intelligence hopping around, it was very conflicting. And it really did seem on the balance of things that, that he had. had become more of their pragmatists since taking over. All right.

So what does this mean? Now he's dead. My question is, I mean, I don't know which one you want to tackle first. It's like who's going to be the next guy up that's like the on the ground guy in Gaza? Because that guy's got a huge bullseye on his back. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, by the way, so right up until the end,

attack, I mean, as it was launched, only five or six people knew about it. Only five or six people knew the plan. October 7th. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We, you know, so his compartmentalization was, was, was effective. I mean, that is pretty incredible. Yeah. Yeah, it's phenomenal. it's not only the Israelis but the Hamas guys didn't know what was going on so they were captured they couldn't reveal anything by the way you know as they were talking about plans for attack on Israel they talked about a number of things one of Sinwa in around 2019 2020 started to get people looking at knocking down or planting explosives in this tower block in Tel Aviv close to the Kiriate, which is their version of the Pentagon. There's like

a shopping mall there and a lot of tall tower blocks around and he wanted to get one of these to fall on the Kiriat. He was dissuaded only because it just seemed like impractical. They couldn't work out of a way to smuggle that many explosives, you know, out

into Tel Aviv. But when he launched that attack, you know, people, people say, what did Hamas want? You know, what did they intend? I think it's only one guy, only one guy, for whom it really matters, what did Hamas intend? And that was him. And he had this, he had this apocalyptic vision, apocalyptic and version of change, whereby he would, Hesvala would join in. He

he was hoping Iran would back them. But you know he didn't I don't think he envisioned the state of Israel just disappearing like that. What he wanted

to do was just creating this drivel event and then because he is an opportunist start building an opportunities that that offered him. And so you noticed that, you know, when Hizbala didn't really join in, he didn't waste a lot of time trying to dissuade them. He didn't waste a lot of time via Hanea trying to push Iran to do more. He was, he was in a sense, although he would have liked more, content with what was going on.

You know, at some point it looked like Hamas might be winning. When he still survived, this was around the early part of this year. Israel was in absolute chaos, still traumatized. And Hamas still had control of this trip, which, by the way, it does. But, you know, it is worth saying, aside from Nasrallah, Sinai's death is infinitely more important than any previous assassination. Because more than anyone else, he was a block to a hostage,

deal. Right. And his fanatical dedication to destroying Gaza, which was part of the plan in a sense, was he wasn't shared by the rest of Hamas leadership. I'm not saying Hamas is going to cave in or anything like that, but it does make a deal far more likely in the long term. Now, who replaces him? Well, the Iranians, the Iranians have said, interestingly enough, Khaled Marshall, Khaled Marshall, my apologies from mispronouncing his name. The Iranians today in a tweet said that he would be the next, he would probably be replaced Sinwa. Now, of course, Sirran doesn't necessarily have a say in that. But it's interesting because Mashal was the guy I mentioned who wasn't particularly pro-Iranian.

So here's one option. Now, Mashaw is in Turkey right now. relatively moderate for a masked dude. You know, he's a little like Ania. He's, he achieved fame in a in a unavailable way. And back in 1997, when Mossad tried to kill him in Jordan. And it was a botched assassination attempt. They poisoned them. And then as he's flapping around in hospital, of course, everyone knows, I think they capture, they capture a couple of Mossad agents too and all the poison and everything. And King Hussein, the King of Jordan says he's furious. And he says, you know, you better fucking give me the antidote now.

And Israel did. You know, they gave to him. So that is why Mushah was still alive. Yeah. And by the way, at the same time after botching that attempt is when Israel agreed to release Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from prison as kind of a, hey, we're sorry for messing this up. So you see all these, all these consequences, man. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's a good chance it will be, Masha.

In fact, he was, when Hanea was killed, oh gosh, when was that? I don't remember, but when he was killed a few months ago. Yeah. A lot of people thought that it would be Mishal who replaced him. but there's another black swan out there. Ask me who the black swan is, Dee. Who's the black swan, Andy? Marmoud Sinwa.

His brother. Ask me if he's related. Yeah, his brother. Okay, so Marmud Sinwa, you know, whereas Sinwa, whereas Yaya Sinwa, you know, has, I mean, he can talk to people and he's charismatic. Malwood Sinwar is just You know, he's He's like a Brooklyn dweller I mean, knuckle dragging thug

Yeah But a bright guy too But just he doesn't have Sinwa's charisma I hate to keep saying that way But he doesn't Um Mawmud was was involved

As I mentioned in The abduction of Charlotte back in 2006 Um The Israelis have tried to kill him six times and in May of 2021, they thought they'd got him. In fact, a lot of people think that he may still be dead, but I think on balance,

the indications are that he's still alive. Will he be accepted by Hamas leadership? I don't know. He may have a halo effect from his brother. But I would say it's unlikely that he would take over simply because, you know, the Hamas leadership was always a little. Sinwa made him know.

nervous, right? And his brother's going to make them nervous too. And his brother is an unknown quantity as far as talent. Um, so there you go, Dee. I have a question. I have a question. Yeah. No, no. Um, in terms of like where Egypt falls here and like the forces in Egypt like that, you know, do provide a lot of stuff to Hamas. Do they have a say? Because I feel like, listen, a Sunni militia, are they really going to want to placate a Shia? I know, even though they are their biggest state sponsor and stuff like that, and they still want to keep them happening. Iran, Iran, how'd Egypt?

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, wouldn't Egypt, and whether it's the Muslim Brotherhood or whatever else, have like any kind of sway there? No, no, not Egypt. Egypt is very much, at least leadership, Cici, very much anti-Muslim Brotherhood. Cici over through Morsi.

Now there is, but there is strong Muslim Brotherhood support still within the Egyptian army, right? You know, Cici hasn't, strangely enough, Cici hasn't managed to purge that. But it's not, but I meant Egypt is not an over or not a supporter of Hamas. Not overtly. Yeah, Qatar, well, some might say implicitly by letting the smuggling go on, whatever. But Qatar and Iran. I don't know, you know, Iran's Iran, as I said,

will probably prefer Marshall, undoubtedly would prefer Marshall. But I don't know how this will affect the relationships. You know, the main interlocutor with Iran, of course, was Hania and he's gone. So you might see a weakening of that relationship, which is good news. you know overall overall i think this bodes well and if people think i'm crazy for saying what do you mean overall you know a really bad dude is dead and i agree a really bad dude but remember we've talked before about sometimes you kill someone and it leads to worse consequences in fact the history of israeli and our own assassination attempts are full of that right yeah i mean

al-qaeda in iraq killed way more people after we killed sagari and we killed ben laden he was you know It was an act of revenge, but it did nothing to al-Qaeda. Yeah. I mean, I hope this brings about at least a hostage deal. But I mean, you got to assume Hamas folks learn from Sinwar, and they know the power that hostages hold, like the leverage they have with those. That's the only leverage they really have.

It is, but I don't know. You see, the question is, who can make these leadership decisions now? You know, with Hezbollah, we've seen that I, even after Nazrallah, you know, even after the assassination of its entire leadership, the organization didn't collapse. And that's because the command and control, surprisingly enough, is distributed across, you know, widely, across smaller units that keep functioning. Yeah.

And also, but also due to, you know, there's just strong ideological and religious fervor that drives these organizations. And it's unclear whether, I mean, Hamas is much smaller, less sophisticated, does have strong ideological and religious fervor, but the remainder of its leadership, probably less committed perhaps to violence than Hamas. I mean, then Hezbollah. I don't know.

That's a bad comparison, but you just don't see that same resolve, I think, in their political leadership. And unless, as I said, you know, Hamas reaches down to someone like Marmwood Sinai to replace his brother, then you're going to see a return of kind of the more, God, I don't see moderate, but yes. Right.

Yeah. Less, not as butchery. Yeah. So, I mean, it could go either way. If Sinwa's dead, this could be a severe blow. It is a severe blow to a mass regardless. It could potentially open the door to a hostage deal,

and it could potentially signal beginning of the group's disintegration. although I doubt that last part, because their hold within Gaza is still very strong. They're still essentially running Gaza now, as we talk about. I mean, is extremism ever going to leave Gaza? Let's be honest. You could slap a, you know, a bow on a pig. It's still going to be a pig.

You asked the easiest questions to answer. So I know, but it's like the thing that the end of the day. I mean, we already answered. I mean, I think we already just, we talked about that, right? I mean, you know, if you, the, we, we jump to, this is going to sound really strange for a Marine and a Special Operations guide to say, but we jump to, you know, counterterrorism or counterinsurgency or assassination. But perhaps because, you know, the UN and other organizations are so ineffective at this, you know, a huge part of all. these military operations should be preemption, not perhaps the courts it should be, right? And I would argue that it doesn't matter. You take Gaza, you put it anywhere in the world, similar conditions,

you're going to have a terrorist problem. Right. You're going to have people, you know, the world's, whatever way you look at it, it's the world's biggest prison. By that I mean, you know, they don't control their own borders, right? So it is a prison. It's not a political statement. It's, you know, you put people in that environment, low unemployment, and you've got this perennial narrative about, you know, the Anagbah and every day that they're hearing this, they're brought up in this. And now you're going to have, I mean, there isn't a single person in Gaza and hasn't been, you know, hasn't lost people. Right. So like we talked about last time, you, me or anyone else, we've got a mirror image.

that these are human beings with the same feelings that we do. And it's going to be a lot of anger. There may be people who say, yeah, let's forgive and go on. But there's going to be a lot of young men who've lost families who want revenge. And yeah. And you got to assume there's some young, I mean, I guess a bad word to say young Turk in Gaza that is charismatic that we don't know about. That could fill a power vacuum. or, you know, maybe fracture Hamas.

Like, who knows what could happen now that, because it does seem like Sinwar had a real deal, strong grip on Hamas, especially in Gaza. Yeah, exactly. Hey, by the way, I want to apologize to everyone, for everyone who, who heard me butcher that quote. Okay, here it is. The sentence, so Yaya Sima said,

it's just a few weeks ago. It's a quote from Imam Ali. there are two days in a person's life the day when death is not your destiny and the day when death is your destiny on the first day no one can harm you on the second day no one can save you so it's a nice summing up of uh of of his fatalism and uh certainly no one could save him yeah um i think that's it i mean unless you have anything else uh crazy day uh yeah kind of out of of nowhere. Someone's probably buying that, you know,

Israeli private a fucking beer tonight, I'd hope. Yeah, maybe he'll be like that dude who shot, um, who shot bin Laden to remember that? Oh, God, yeah. Have you seen that YouTube video? Who shot, yeah.

Of course. Who knows? It'll be very first thing to see. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he gets a book deal. I hope he's, he's not a seal, right? So I think we're safe from that, at least for a while.

Yeah. Oh, I, they've they've uh in the in the photographs they've uh quite rightly blurred all the faces involved so i would be surprised the idf scott um did for you know i mean even if when you're out of the idf you're still in the reserves so the reach of military discipline is still there so um probably not the same situation as with uh i keep forgetting his name how can i forget the guy who shot rob o'nele no rob o'nele yeah he didn't shoot he shot bin laden's dead body he didn't kill him All right. Anyway, in the end, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. Yeah, it's like you just happen to be the lucky guy at the point of the spear when, you know, when all this, this happened. I mean, listen. But this is a very different situation. That was a tier one unit. Right. And, you know, doing a, and in a very, I mean, the most powerful, sophisticated nation enough, all the backing of that. this was a group of of joes you know just yeah not a great but just you know wondering in here's another building to clear right and and and then they go and wow we killed sinwa one of them recognized them hey that looks like sinwa poof i mean listen if i i i can see them discussing somewhere in israel like hey let's uh make this kid famous and have a feel good story you know get some good press out of this right like maybe maybe i don't know i don't know what they uh you know

out how old I don't, you know, we, we are so, I suppose most of the Western world is, is the same, isn't it? Everyone's publicity, hungry, and yeah, loves a hero. And, yeah. Okay.

All right, guys. Well, there we all, man. Yeah, on the hasty, uh, live episode of Eyeson. Uh, don't forget to check out Andy Milburn. Andy Milburn's links are all in the description. His book when the tempest gathers. His substack is Twitter. Everything is in the description.

Should check them out. You can find them there. Of course, the best way you could help this show and support the show is Patreon.com slash the team house. Seriously, you get ad free episode, ad free audio and video, early access, access to our bonus segments, some bonus shows and stuff like that. And it helps the channel, first and foremost. So Andy, as always, great job. Yeah, Andy, everyone, all the best.