Mixed feelings for Palestinians on Hamas chief Sinwar's upcoming speech

According to Hamas senior official Osama Hamdan, the Islamic movement's political bureau chief Yahya Sinwar will deliver a speech to the Palestinian people and the wider world soon.

Remarking to AFP on Monday, Hamdan said, "Sinwar will deliver his direct message to our people and to the world and to confirm that he will never leave Palestine as he did everything to liberate our lands."

Hamadan added the Palestinian resistance still maintains a high ability to continue the war against Israel. 

Hamdan's statements came a week after Israel's Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant claimed "Hamas no longer exists as a military formation in Gaza."

"It is expected that Sinwar makes a speech on the first anniversary of the Palestinian attack on 7 October," Hussam al-Dajani, the Gaza-based Palestinian political analyst, remarked to The New Arab. 

Dajani believes that Sinwar's speech will be two-fold; the first directed to the Palestinian people to thank them for their sacrifices and steadfastness in the face of Israel's war of extermination.

"The second message will be directed to the US and Israel and will carry purely political content about the day after the war [...] Sinwar will express his point of view and the political arrangement that Hamas will implement and the path it will take," Dajani added. 

"Sinwar will address the negotiations with Israel and announce his conditions for reaching an agreement with Israel, and this will have political implications on the Palestinian and international levels," he further said. 

Sinwar, a long-time military commander and most wanted by Israel for being behind the Palestinian military attack on the Israeli military bases and civilian settlements adjacent to Gaza on 7 October 2023, is apparently still hiding in Gaza and not appeared in public since Israel's war launched eleven months ago. 

Although Sinwar enjoys popularity throughout the region, especially since he was able to direct a military strike against Israel, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip are more divided. 

Hero or villain?

Sari Sawafta, a Palestinian refugee based in Tulkarm, told TNA, "Sinwar was able to revive the Palestinian cause again and put it at the forefront of the global scene and shed light on the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people wherever they are."

"Sadly, civilians in the Gaza Strip are paying the price for Israeli crimes, but it is the international and Arab silence that has encouraged Israel to continue its war. The Palestinian resistance have the right to defend their people," the 39-year-old man said. 

Riyad Abu Hamid from Gaza City disagrees with Sawafta. 

"I have never disagreed with Hamas in its policy based on resisting the occupation because this is our legitimate right to liberate our land, but I disagree with Sinwar as a person who is incapable of managing a policy that is in the interest of the people," said Abu Hamid, who was forced to flee shelter more than 13 times in the southern areas of the coastal enclave.

"Unfortunately, Hamas made a big mistake when it put Sinwar in charge of affairs and allowed him to decide to go to war, not for our benefit as Palestinians, but as a tool in the hands of Iran as part of its project to fight America and Israel via its allies," the 45-year-old father of five opined. 

"Because of the war, we lost tens of thousands of civilians and thousands of our fighters who were the basis of our protection from Israel (...) and those who bear more responsibility than Sinwar are the Arab and Islamic countries that did not move a finger to stop Israel's massacres," he added. 

For her part, Sama al-Masri, a displaced Palestinian in Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza, wondered what tangible benefit Sinwar's speech would bring for the people at this very moment. 

"Will his speech compensate us for our losses? Will it bring back our loved ones who were killed by Israel in cold blood? Will it return the Gaza Strip to the way it was before the war?" al-Masri remarked bitterly to TNA.

"I don't care what this man will say because he is simply on a par with Israel in the crimes against us in the Gaza Strip," she added, stressing that she hopes the war will end, and her family will survive.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Maarouf, a Palestinian man from Beit Lahia town in the north of Gaza, believes that the focus should be on Israeli crimes rather than critiquing Sinwar or the larger armed movement. 

"Israel is the only criminal side in this war. Sinwar as well as all our fighters did their best to defeat the Israeli occupation, so we should not oppose or even accept the content of his speech, at least during the war. We have to unify our position and fight Israel until we liberate our lands," the 55-year-old father of three stressed. 

The New Arab attempted to get comments from Palestinian officials, but they refused to talk about the topic at this current moment.