Sinwar’s death marks an end of a phase of conflict and probably the beginning of another

Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar was killed by IDF on October 16.

The death of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar on October 16 at the hands of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will push the region further towards instability and not towards a modicum of peace. That is the only lesson which can be drawn from 76 years of conflict between Israel and different Palestinian groups that has, among other things, laid waste to neighbouring Lebanon and once pushed Jordan into civil war.

Working against long-term peace in the region are three factors — demographics, statelessness, and ideas — and all three combine to keep the idea of a Palestinian state alive, which means the conflict can ebb temporarily but never really be resolved.

Demographics

Gaza and the West Bank, separated by Israel, are the two areas where Palestinians got constrained autonomy following the Oslo Accords in the 1990s. The goal of this agreement was to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by May 1999.

Gaza, a tiny strip of 360 square kilometres, packs in 2.1 million people, according to CIA’s The World Factbook.  As media reports indicate, IDF’s operations in Gaza have made it practically uninhabitable — a territory that is now made of refugees constantly on the move.

West Bank, the larger Palestinian territory, has a population of 3.2 million people. Hostilities between Israeli settlers and Palestinians have only increased since October 7, 2023, and the number of conflict-related deaths is increasing in this territory.

Israel has a population of 9.4 million, about 21 percent of whom are Arabs.  The demographics are stacked in a way that Israel now confronts Palestinians within its territory and abutting it, who together come to close to 75 percent of its population and nurse a deep-seated sense of historical grievance.

That’s the reality which can no longer be glossed over by accords, which ignore the core issue, or be suppressed by the superiority of IDF and Israeli intelligence.

Also read: Israel kills Hamas chief: Who was Yahya Sinwar, the 'Butcher of Khan Younis' and Oct 7 attack mastermind

Statelessness

Palestinians represent the world’s largest stateless community, as none of their Arab neighbours are willing to absorb them on a large scale as citizens.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, approximately 5.9 million Palestinians live as refugees in the Middle East. A significant proportion are not people originally displaced from their homes but are children of refugees who were born in camps and live a ‘’stateless” life.

In the contemporary world, where benefits and opportunities are closely related to nationality, Israel has two neighbours, Jordan and Lebanon, which are home to “stateless” Palestinians who are inevitably a source of instability in the region.

Jordan was the first Arab country to experience this on a large scale as restive Palestinians catalysed a civil war in 1970-71, dubbed ‘’Black September”. The Jordanian monarchy, supported by a team of experts from Pakistan, including an officer named Zia-ul-Haq, won eventually. But Jordan’s delicate balancing act between its citizens of Palestinian origin and the rest of its nationals continues to this day.

Lebanon, a few years later, was wrecked by a civil war that had its roots in the country’s original problems. The arrival of Palestinian refugees, however, was an important trigger for the 15-year war, which drew in IDF ground forces and led to the creation of Hezbollah.

Today, with Gaza close to being uninhabitable on a long-term basis in the absence of massive international aid, and IDF’s presence on the ground, there is little hope that Palestinians there will accept the situation quietly. Egypt’s refusal to accommodate Palestinians from Gaza means that peace there is highly unlikely.

Watch: Israel releases drone footage of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar's final moments

Ideas

Palestinian resistance groups, driven by religious ideology or nationalism, primarily represent the idea that they have the right to a sovereign state in what was their home.

Over time, different groups such as Fatah or Hamas have dominated these territories. They have different ideologies and all of them have seen many prominent leaders killed by IDF or assassinated by Israeli intelligence.

The outcome is that while organisations have weakened, the vacuum has been filled by another Palestinian group, often more inflexible than the earlier one.

Assassinating leaders doesn’t help in bringing about peace because a ceasefire and an agreement on behalf of an entire population require a personality who can bring about recalcitrant segments to accept compromise.

If Palestinians are driven by an idea, which gets reinforced by the reality of their existence, Sinwar’s death will not bring about substantive change. The presence of IDF in Gaza and the absence of a Palestinian leadership there will not end hostilities.

It is worth noting that Hezbollah’s decentralised units are still firing the odd missiles into Israel.

Sinwar’s death marks the end of a phase in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. History tells us we should now expect the beginning of something that will lead to another round of violence, with a very high probability of Israel’s Arab neighbours having to deal with the fallout.