A Hamas squad commander and sniper who took part in the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel was killed in a strike in northern Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday.

Ahmed Hassan Salame Alsauarka was killed in a “precise and targeted” strike conducted by the Israeli Air Force in the Beit Hanoun area, the IDF said.

Alsauarka was a squad commander in Hamas’ Nukhba Forces, which carried out attacks in southern Israel during the Oct. 7 massacre. 

He also “led and directed sniper activity” in the area where he was killed and “took part in Hamas’ attacks on IDF troops,” according to the IDF.

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The deadly strike on Alsauarka was conducted following intelligence gathered by the IDF and the Israeli Securities Agency.

After an extensive search and measures taken to mitigate harm to civilians, the IDF said Alsauarka was identified by troops and then killed. The military noted there were no civilians injured during the strike.

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The Israel Defense Forces said the deadly strike on Alsauarka was conducted in the Beit Hanoun area of northern Gaza, where he reportedly led and directed sniper activity for Hamas. (Israel Defense Forces/Screenshot)

Israeli troops are still operating in the central Gaza Strip, according to the military. In the past day, a mortar shell launch post was struck by IDF aerial and artillery forces and two terrorists were targeted using an Iron Sting precision missile.

The IDF said troops remain in the Rafah area conducting “precise, intelligence-based, operational activity.” 

Several terrorists have been killed in “close-quarters encounters” in the past 24 hours and targeted raids have revealed rocket launchers and other weapons, the IDF said of the activity in Rafah.

Fox News’ Yonat Friling contributed to this report.

Vietnamese President To Lam has welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hanoi by promising to boost ties for the peace and stability of the region as well as the world.

Putin, who was received with a 21-gun salute during a military ceremony on Thursday, said strengthening a comprehensive strategic partnership with Vietnam was one of Russia’s priorities.

The visit has resulted in a sharp rebuke from the United States. Russia faces a slew of US-led sanctions for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes. The Kremlin rejected it as “null and void”, stressing that Moscow does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction.

Reporting from Hanoi, Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng said that Vietnam was “very keen to make … Putin feel welcome but at the same time they do have strong relationships with China and the US they want to protect”.

The Russian leader concluded a defence pact with North Korea a day earlier. But in Vietnam, he only signed deals to further cooperation on education, science and technology, energy, climate change and health.

“Weapons will be discussed but not those going to Russia but those coming into Vietnam,” Cheng said. “The Vietnam military is still very heavily reliant on Russian-made arms, but they found it increasingly difficult to get them, particularly since the war in Ukraine started.”

“So, they will be wanting some guarantees, but there is also pressure on the Vietnamese military to diversify their military reliance on Russia. That is probably a theme for the trip.”

Warm welcome

Putin arrived at Vietnam’s Presidential Palace on Thursday, where he was greeted by schoolchildren waving Russian and Vietnamese flags.

He shook hands with and embraced Lam before a bilateral meeting and a joint briefing to the media.

The Russian leader is also scheduled to meet Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong – Vietnam’s most powerful politician – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and parliamentary chief Tran Thanh Man.

Putin’s recent visits to China and now North Korea and Vietnam are attempts to “break the international isolation”, Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told The Associated Press news agency.

The US and its allies have expressed growing concerns over a possible arms arrangement in which North Korea provides Russia with badly needed munitions for its use in Ukraine, in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons and missile programme.

Both countries deny accusations of weapons transfers, which would violate multiple United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Meanwhile, Russia is important to Vietnam for two reasons, Giang said: It is the biggest supplier of military equipment to the Southeast Asian nation, and Russian oil exploration technologies help maintain its sovereignty claims in the contested South China Sea.

“Russia is signalling that it is not isolated in Asia despite the Ukraine war, and Vietnam is reinforcing a key traditional relationship even as it also diversifies ties with newer partners,” Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, told AP.

‘Friendly relations’

Vietnam and Russia have had diplomatic relations since 1950, and this year marks 30 years of a treaty establishing “friendly relations” between them.

Evidence of this long relationship and its influence can be seen in Vietnamese cities like the capital, where the many Soviet-style apartment blocks are now dwarfed by skyscrapers and a statue of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, stands in a park where children skateboard every evening.

Many of the Communist Party’s top leaders in Vietnam studied in Soviet universities, including party chief Trong.

Bilateral trade between Russia and Vietnam was valued at $3.6bn in 2023, compared with $171bn with China and $111bn with the US.

Since the early 2000s, Russia accounted for about 80 percent of Vietnam’s arms imports. This has been declining over the years due to Vietnamese attempts to diversify its supplies. But to entirely wean itself off Russia will take time, said Giang.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The fate of the proposed cease-fire deal for Gaza hinges in many ways on two men: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

Each leader faces significant political and personal pressures that may be influencing their decision-making. And neither seems to be in a rush to make concessions to end the devastating eight-month-long war and free hostages taken by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack.

Hamas has accepted the broad outline of the plan but requested “amendments.” Netanyahu has publicly disputed aspects of it, even though the U.S. has framed it as an Israeli plan.

Among the major sticking points is how to move from an initial temporary truce in the deal’s first phase to a permanent cease-fire that includes an end to the fighting and full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Here is a look at what may be driving the two leaders:

Netanyahu is ‘buying time’

Throughout the war, the long-serving Israeli leader has been criticized for letting political considerations get in the way of his decision-making.

His government is buoyed by two ultranationalist parties that oppose cease-fire deals. Instead, they prefer continuous military pressure to try to defeat Hamas and free the hostages. They also talk about “encouraging” Palestinians to leave and reestablishing Israeli settlements, which were dismantled when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation.

Netanyahu himself has taken a tough line on the cease-fire, saying he will not end the war until Hamas’ military and governing capabilities are destroyed.

But with his hard-line partners pledging to topple the government if a cease-fire is struck, Netanyahu has been pushed even farther into the corner. His reliance on them to remain in power recently intensified after a centrist member of his war Cabinet, former military chief Benny Gantz, quit over frustrations with Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict.

Netanyahu has had to balance internal pressures against demands from the Biden administration, which is promoting the latest cease-fire proposal, and from families of hostages who believe only a deal can set their loved ones free. Tens of thousands of Israelis have joined mass protests in support of the hostage families.

Netanyahu appears to be siding with his far-right governing partners for the moment, knowing they hold the key to his immediate political survival, although he says he has the country’s best interests in mind.

Their departure from the government could lead to new elections, which would open him up to a vote that could end his rule and likely the start of investigations into the failures of Oct. 7.

Netanyahu is also on trial for corruption, proceedings that have continued throughout the war yet have faded from the public consciousness. A cease-fire deal could refocus attention on the charges, which have dogged the Israeli leader for years and which he adamantly denies.

Netanyahu’s political fortunes appear to have improved over the course of the war. His public support plummeted in the aftermath of Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel. But over time it has gradually ticked up. While he would still face a tough path toward reelection, he isn’t a write-off.

“He runs the war as he wants, which means very slowly. He’s buying time,” said Gideon Rahat, a senior fellow at the Israeli Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think thank, and chairman of the political science department at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Rahat said Netanyahu is also keen to push on with the war in the hopes that former U.S. President Donald Trump returns to office, possibly giving Israel more leeway in its fight against Hamas.

“I don’t see any cease-fire that really comes close to being something he adopts,” Rahat said. “But he’s not the only one that controls reality.”

Sinwar’s mission is to survive

Hamas’ leader in Gaza also appears to be in no rush to sign on to a deal.

The militant group’s exiled leadership is somewhat varied in its opinion on how to approach a cease-fire agreement. But Sinwar — the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks — has particular weight on the matter.

As a Hamas stalwart who spent decades in Israeli prisons, he has incentives to keep the war going.

On a personal level, his life may be on the line. Israel vowed to kill him in response to the October assault, and Sinwar is believed to be hiding deep within Gaza’s underground tunnels surrounded by Israeli hostages.

If a cease-fire takes hold, Sinwar will be taking a great risk stepping out in public.

“I think he understands that he’s kind of a dead man walking. But it’s a matter of how long can he hold out?” said Khaled el-Gindy, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute think tank.

But Sinwar is motivated by more than just his own personal fate. Steeped in Hamas’ radical ideology, Sinwar seeks Israel’s destruction and has made political gains by watching the war harm Israel’s international standing and boost support for the Palestinian cause.

Israel has faced surging international criticism — from its Western allies, from the international justice system, from protesters around the world — over its conduct during the war. That has deepened Israel’s global isolation, brought accusations that it is committing genocide against Palestinians and driven the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to seek the arrests of Israeli leaders.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, wrote on the social platform X that Sinwar was also “counting on the sustained global outcry due to the horrendous killing of Gazans to force Israel to stop the war eventually,” on his own terms.

But Sinwar could face some difficult questions of his own when the war ends — not only over his personal role in the atrocities of Oct. 7 but also from the Palestinian public as the full extent of the wartime devastation and the years-long process of reconstruction sink in.

El-Gindy said Sinwar wasn’t deterred by the high price Palestinian civilians in Gaza are paying in the war, seeing it as an unavoidable sacrifice on the road toward liberation.

From Sinwar’s perspective, continuing to fight Israel’s powerful army, even if only through pockets of resistance, denies Israel a victory, el-Gindy said.

“Their whole mission is to survive,” he said. “If they survive, they win.”

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Associated Press writers Julia Frankel and Jack Jeffery contributed from Jerusalem.

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Follow AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war