What Yahya Sinwar’s Death Could Mean for the Gaza Cease-Fire Talks

For more than a year, the fate of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar seemed entwined with the fate of the war in Gaza.

Mr. Sinwar orchestrated the Hamas assault on Israel last October that killed up to 1,200 people, captured some 250 hostages and prompted a devastating Israeli retaliation that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and laid waste to much of the Gaza Strip.

He was considered the driving force behind Hamas’s refusal to surrender, even as Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion devastated the territory and displaced most of its population. And his survival made it impossible for Israel to declare victory — living proof that Hamas, though decimated, remained undefeated.

Now, after Mr. Sinwar’s killing, a route toward some kind of truce in Gaza seems slightly more navigable, since it gives both Israel and Hamas a pretext to soften their stance, according to Israeli and Palestinian analysts. But major obstacles remain — and any solution in Gaza will have only a limited impact on the broader conflict between Israel and Hamas’s regional allies, including Hezbollah.

Negotiations for a cease-fire and a deal to release the hostages stalled partly because Mr. Sinwar held out for a permanent agreement allowing Hamas to retain power in a postwar Gaza. His maximalist stance was incompatible with that of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who sought only a temporary truce that would allow Israel to return to battle within weeks in order to prevent Hamas’s long-term survival.