Israeli Foreign Minister Katz: Appointment Of Yahya Sinwar Evidence Of Palestine Controlled By Iran And Hamas

JAKARTA - Israel's Foreign Minister, Israel Katz said the appointment of Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of the Hamas group proved "the Palestinian issue is now fully controlled by Iran and Hamas."

"Without Israel's actions in Gaza, the region will be completely under the control of Hamas. In Judea and Samaria, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority survive only because of Israel's intensive military operations against Hamas infrastructure and Islamic Jihad, supported and promoted by Iran," he wrote in X, quoted from The Times of Israel August 7.

prosecution and Samaria are Israeli terms for the West Bank region, where the Palestinian Authority government under President Mahmoud Abbas is located.

Hamas announced that Yahya Sinwar was elected as the new Head of Political Bureau, replacing the late Ismail Haniyeh who was killed in an attack in Tehran, Iran last week.

"The Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement announced the election of Commander Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement's political bureau, replacing the deceased Commander Ismail Haniyeh, may Allah forgive him," the movement said in a brief statement.

Foreign Minister Katz accused Iran of smuggling weapons into Jordan to "disrupt the Jordanian regime and then flood refugee camps in JAPAN and Samaria as well as the entire region with weapons and funds, to build another terror front from the east against Israel's main population centers".

He advocated "Palestinian self-management" in the West Bank, but stressed Israel must maintain security control in the region "to prevent the founding of other Iranian-Islamist extremist camps and allow Palestinians to regulate their internal affairs."

"Whatever else will lead to the formation of another Iranian outpost in the region, which will explode in the presence of the world and all countries in the region. The world must see the reality as it is and support Israel, which currently stands at the forefront of fighting against the Iranian axis and Islamist extremists," he said.

Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran, Iran on Tuesday last week to attend the inauguration of the elected president Masoud Pezeshkian in the afternoon.

He met Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Pezeshkian before the inauguration. The next day, Hamas confirmed Haniyeh was killed in an attack on his place of stay, which also killed a bodyguard.