^{Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Ariel Hermoni\/Israeli Ministry of Defense
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (left) meets with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Israel on Oct. 13, 2023<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n}

(JNS) \u2014 Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday night briefed his American counterpart Lloyd Austin on the successful elimination of Hamas terror chief Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallant \u201cstressed his commitment to ensuring that 101 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza return to Israel,\u201d while noting \u201cthe urgency and unique opportunity that has been created.\u201d To this end, he called on Hamas terrorists \u201cto cease fire and immediately release the hostages,\u201d according to a statement from his office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallant described Sinwar\u2019s demise as an \u201cextraordinary operational achievement and strategic game-changer,\u201d and expressed his appreciation to Austin for his supportive message to the IDF and the State of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday night phoned Israeli President Isaac Herzog to congratulate him on Sinwar\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secretary noted \u201cthat justice had been served, and the world was now a better place without a man who was responsible for the deaths of many civilians and who obstructed any peace process in the region,\u201d according to a statement from Herzog\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, the president emphasized that \u201cthe issue of returning the hostages must be a top priority, and now there was an important opportunity to focus all resources and efforts on bringing the hostages back home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secretary agreed that \u201ca year after the horrific massacre, they must work together to swiftly return the hostages to their homes,\u201d adding that \u201cthe U.S. intended to significantly focus its efforts to achieve this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Ariel Hermoni\/Israeli Ministry of DefenseDefense Minister Yoav Gallant (left) meets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":112905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,2585,219,270,393,2582],"class_list":["post-112903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-proquest","tag-austin","tag-gallant","tag-israel","tag-national","tag-sinwar"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Gallant-to.jpg?fit=821%2C546&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112906,"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112903\/revisions\/112906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanisraelite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}