Israel announced Thursday it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. A senior member of Hamas’s political bureau told the AFP, “Israel believes that killing our leaders means the end of our movement … these leaders became an icon for future generations to continue the journey towards a free Palestine.” The Israeli military released a video allegedly showing Sinwar’s final moments in which he appears to throw a stick or piece of debris at the Israeli military drone filming him. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared “this is not the end of the war in Gaza” and that Israel would continue its assault until “Hamas lays down its arms and returns our hostages.” It appears Sinwar was not killed as part of a targeted strike, but in the course of Israel’s indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris joined other leaders in calling for Sinwar’s death to propel a ceasefire. But inside Gaza, Palestinians say past killings of Hamas and other resistance leaders have not ended Israel’s brutality.

Kamal Abou Ajwa: “They did not only assassinate Sinwar. They also assassinated Haniyeh. They assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. And the war did not stop. We are urging for the war to stop. We are not asking for them to assassinate this person or that. They have assassinated most of our leaders, and the war has not stopped. We are calling for the war to stop.”

Yahya Sinwar became the chief of Hamas’s political operations after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in July.

In other news from Gaza, Al Jazeera camera operator Fadi al-Wahidi remains in a coma after he was shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper while reporting in Jabaliya earlier this month. Israeli authorities have blocked the evacuation of al-Wahidi from Gaza, as well as that of fellow Al Jazeera cameraperson Ali al-Attar, to receive urgently needed medical treatment. Press freedom groups are demanding that the two Al Jazeera camerapeople be allowed out of Gaza in order to survive.

In the occupied West Bank, mourners gathered for the funeral of Hanan Salameh, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as she harvested olives on her land in the village of Faqqua near Jenin. At least 757 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by Israel since October 7 of last year. Hanan Salameh’s son described his mother’s killing.

Faris Salameh: “We were picking olives, and Israeli authorities had previously given us a permit to harvest the olives on the condition that we stay away from the fence 100 meters. We were farther than around 100 meters. And when they started shooting, we started packing our stuff and leaving. She was martyred. She was shot by the tractor. We were by the end of the area, far from the fence, and they shot her in cold blood. This is what happened.”

Earlier today, the U.N. said it’s recorded at least 32 attacks by Israeli settlers targeting Palestinians harvesting olives since the start of October. Thirty-nine Palestinians have been injured, and some 600 Palestinian olive trees and saplings were “vandalized, sawed off, or stolen.”

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon has reiterated it will remain in place despite ongoing, deliberate attacks against its members by Israeli forces. UNIFIL also said it found evidence of possible use of white phosphorus weapons near one of its bases. The use of white phosphorus is illegal. This comes as Hezbollah says it’s entering a “new phase” of its fight against Israeli forces that have invaded Lebanon, including the introduction of new weapons. Israel has killed at least 2,400 people in Lebanon and forcibly displaced over 1.34 million people over the past month.

President Biden has arrived in Berlin for talks with Western leaders. During brief remarks after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Biden said his trip was aimed at ensuring that NATO remains strong and that Ukraine prevails in its war against Russian occupation. Biden also hailed Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Biden’s final trip to Europe as president comes as several European lawmakers have called for sanctions against Israel over its bloody assaults on Gaza and Lebanon.

On Tuesday, far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni revealed that Italy has effectively had an arms embargo against Israel in place since its invasion of Gaza last year, with arms export licenses consistently denied. Meanwhile, Ireland’s leader Simon Harris said he’s looking at ways to immediately impose trade sanctions on Israel, following a call by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on the European Commission to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel. That drew accusations of hypocrisy from some Spanish lawmakers, who pointed to Spain’s weapons deals with Israel since October 7 worth one billion euros. This is Spanish parliamentarian Ione Belarra, who addressed the Spanish parliament Wednesday while holding a picture of the Palestinian student Sha’ban al-Dalou, who was burned to death in Israel’s attack this week on Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza.

Ione Belarra: “Last Sunday, Israel did this: They burned dozens of people alive in tents while they were taking refuge in a hospital. What is the difference between this and the Nazi gas chambers? I am asking you all, Mr. President. There is no difference. And we are complicit as a country in this genocide.”

Sha’ban al-Dalou’s younger brother Abdul Ruhman succumbed to his burn wounds earlier today. We’ll go to Gaza later in the broadcast to speak with Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed about Sha’ban al-Dalou and his family.

Gaza solidarity protests are continuing across U.S. college campuses. In Rhode Island, students from across the state are traveling to Providence today to join Brown University students in a protest against their school’s rejection of their call to divest from Israeli companies complicit in war and occupation.

In Illinois, Northwestern University sent in campus police to tear down a sukkah set up by Jewish students that they dedicated to the people of Gaza. A sukkah is a temporary booth or hut constructed during the weeklong festival of Sukkot. Jewish Voice for Peace Northwestern said, “We will not allow our traditions to be exploited by those who seek death and destruction. Our ancestors, many of whom endured genocide and ethnic cleansing, taught us never to be bystanders in the face of injustice.”

In more protest news, earlier this week peace activists again blockaded the entrance to the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada to oppose the role of U.S. drones in Israel’s war on Gaza. One activist was arrested.

The Texas Supreme Court has temporarily halted the planned execution of Robert Roberson, granting him a stunning 11th-hour reprieve on Thursday — the same day he was set to receive a lethal injection at a state penitentiary in Huntsville. The stay of execution came just hours after a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers voted to subpoena Roberson to appear before a Texas House committee. Their unprecedented move prompted Texas Supreme Court justices to delay Roberson’s execution while a lower court resolves a separation-of-powers conflict raised by the subpoena.

Roberson’s reprieve came as prison officials in Alabama killed 36-year-old death row prisoner Derrick Dearman, forcing a lethal cocktail of three drugs into his veins. He was the 20th prisoner to have been executed this year across eight U.S. states. Ahead of the execution, Dearman’s lawyers argued his trial counsel failed to present the jury with information about his lifelong and severe mental illness.

One hundred twenty-five organizations sent a letter to the Biden administration asking the U.S. government to end its “diversion and mistreatment of asylum seekers by exiling them to Guantánamo, out of reach of their families, advocates, public consciousness — and the law.” The letter was organized by the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the International Refugee Assistance Project, which found detained asylum seekers, including children, were being held indefinitely in prison-like conditions with insufficient healthcare and little access to legal assistance.

In election news, a federal judge has blocked Alabama’s voter roll purge that targeted over 3,000 people Alabama claimed were noncitizens and therefore ineligible to vote. The Justice Department successfully argued the voter purge came too close to the November 5 election and included naturalized citizens who are in fact able to vote.

Meanwhile, Nebraska’s Supreme Court has ordered state election officials to comply with a new state law restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions who have completed their sentences. The law had been challenged by Nebraska Republicans, including the attorney general and secretary of state. The delay in implementing the law means thousands of newly eligible voters will have just days to register to vote ahead of an October 25 deadline.

In Arizona, a pro-Trump super PAC has been mailing older voters a false and misleading mailer proclaiming “Medicare Cancellation Notice” — with a return address reading “Department of Medicare Cancellation, Kamala Harris Administration.” The MAGA, Inc. super PAC did not respond to a request by Mother Jones magazine asking if it intended for the mailer to look like an official notice — as a scare tactic for seniors.

In Wisconsin, voting rights groups have asked the Department of Justice to investigate text messages sent to college-age voters warning them about fines and hefty prison terms, with the admonition, “Don’t vote in a state where you’re not eligible.” The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, “many students and other young voters are fearful that they will face criminal prosecution if they register and exercise their right to vote — because of a malicious, inaccurate text sent by an anonymous party.”

New York prosecutors could soon criminally charge the oil industry for its role in fueling the climate catastrophe. A prosecution memorandum that has been endorsed by elected officials across New York and published by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen reads, “[Climate] disasters are in large part the result of reckless conduct undertaken by major fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP that are responsible for a substantial portion of all the global greenhouse gas emissions that have caused our planet to heat up. … This conduct was not just amoral. It was criminal.”

Forty cities and states have filed civil lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry in recent years for causing, then covering up, the climate crisis.