The election of Yahya Sanwar as Hamas’ new leader in the Gaza Strip is a significant change, and not for the better, as far as Israel is concerned. Not just because Sanwar is one of the terrorists who were released in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and because he is radical and very militant in his conduct and in his views, but because he thwarts any chance of a “hudna” (truce) in the strip and a long-term resolution of Hamas’ relations with Israel.

Sanwar shatters any hopes that Israel may have had for a prisoner and body exchange deal with Hamas. He is the one who rejected the recent Israeli proposal out of hand. The conditions he sets for a future deal are publicly and politically inadmissible in Israel: As a precondition for discussing such a deal, he is demanding that Israel release about 50 of the terrorists who were freed in the Shalit deal and arrested again in 2014 following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens. After this condition is met according to his demands, negotiations will be launched on the release of dozens of other terrorists in exchange for the return of two bodies and two civilians who crossed into Gaza.

Yahya Sanwar knows that these conditions are inadmissible in Israel, but he keeps demanding them while increasing his organization’s motivation to carry out additional abductions in the future in order to strengthen his leverages of pressure on Israel.

Sanwar’s election is bad news also in terms of Hamas’ general orientation in the Gaza Strip. It means that from now on, all of Hamas’ resources in the strip will be subject to the needs of the military wing and the tunnel excavation.

Read the full article in Ynet.