Was Yahya Sinwar the obstacle to peace the US made him out to be?

The US has dubbed the late Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar as an “insurmountable obstacle” to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, but Sinwar’s killing is likely to lift the veil on Israel’s ambitions to continue its war on Gaza.

US officials told Middle East Eye on Thursday that Sinwar’s death in a firefight with Israeli troops could energise ceasefire talks, and that the US had already reached out to Qatar and Egypt to see if negotiations could be rekindled. 

But analysts say Sinwar’s death is unlikely to have a major impact on the talks because it does little to change Israel’s motivations to keep pummelling the besieged enclave, in fact, it may bolster those efforts. 

“Sinwar was certainly an obstacle to a deal, but the main obstacle has been Netanyahu, who has assassinated, and escalated this war, at every opportunity,” Khaled Elgindy, the Middle East Institute’s director of Israel-Palestine affairs, told Middle East Eye. 

“If Sinwar was the main reason we didn’t have a deal, it begs the question, with him out of the picture, why isn’t the path clear?” 

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Was Yahya Sinwar the obstacle to peace the US made him out to be?