Hamas mourns Sinwar, vows no hostage release until war ends

Hamas vowed on Friday it would not release the hostages it seized during its October 7 attack on Israel until the Gaza war ends, as it mourned the death of its leader, Yahya Sinwar."We mourn the great leader, the martyred brother, Yahya Sinwar, Abu Ibrahim," Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said in a recorded video statement.The hostages "will not return... unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops, there is a complete withdrawal from it, and our heroic prisoners are released from the occupation's prisons," he added.Chief of Hamas in Gaza at the time of the attack, Sinwar became the group's overall leader after the killing in July of its political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.In Gaza, there was little hope Sinwar's killing would bring an end to the war.Israel conducted air strikes on Gaza on Friday, with several raids overnight and early morning pummelling the territory, according to an AFP journalist on the ground.According to Gaza's civil defence agency, rescuers recovered the bodies of three Palestinian children from the rubble of their home in the north of the territory after it was hit at dawn.The Israeli military said it was pressing its operation in Jabalia, one of the focuses of the fighting in recent weeks, and where strikes on Thursday killed at least 14 people, according to two hospitals.A UN-backed assessment has found some 345,000 Gazans face "catastrophic" levels of hunger this winter.Israel's campaign to crush Hamas and bring back the hostages seized by militants has killed 42,500 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.With the civilian toll in Gaza mounting, Israel has faced criticism over its conduct of the war, including from the United States.The Israeli military said Sinwar was killed in a firefight in southern Gaza's Rafah, near the Egyptian border, while being tracked by a drone.It released drone footage of what it said was Sinwar's final moments, with the video showing a wounded person throwing an object at the drone.Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday said Sinwar will remain an inspiration for those fighting Israel across the region."His fate -- beautifully pictured in his last image -- is not a deterrent but a source of inspiration for resistance fighters across the region, Palestinian and non-Palestinian," Araghchi said on X.Hezbollah and Yemen's Huthi rebels both mourned the death of Sinwar, vowing continued support for their Palestinian ally Hamas.