Acting Israel PM beats war drums over new Hamas chief

By Kaamil Ahmed

JERUSALEM

Israel's acting prime minister on Tuesday warned of mounting tension -- and potential war -- with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip following the election one day earlier of Yahya Sinwar as new Hamas leader.

Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who is running the government while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on a trip to the U.S., told Israel Radio on Tuesday that Sinwar was "impulsive" and "cruel", thus raising the chances of another conflict with the blockaded coastal enclave.

Sinwar was elected Hamas chief in Gaza in an internal group election held Monday, replacing Gaza’s former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

The new Hamas leader was imprisoned by Israel from 1988 until his release as part of a prisoner swap in 2011, when he was exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who Hamas had captured in 2006.

In 2015, Sinwar’s name was added to the U.S. terrorist blacklist for his role in Hamas-led resistance operations against Israel.

Avi Dichter, chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), said Sinwar’s election to replace Haniyeh showed there was no distinction between Hamas' military and political components.

"The message we must take away from this is that we have to bolster our abilities to destroy Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure, which we may have to do sooner than expected," Dichter said in a statement.

One day before Sinwar was declared the new Hamas chief in Gaza, the Times of Israel newspaper published a profile portraying him as a hardliner who has enjoyed mounting influence over Hamas since his release from prison in 2011.

Israeli concerns regarding Sinwar's influence on the group were highlighted last week when COGAT, the Israeli authority that administers the occupied Palestinian territories, published an article about Sinwar in which it claimed that his electoral victory could embolden "extreme voices" within Hamas.

Born in 1962 in the Gaza Strip’s Khan Younis refugee camp, Sinwar is a co-founder of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades.

One year after his 2011 release from prison, he became a member of Hamas’ influential political bureau.