Following the killing of the leader of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, Yehya al-Sinwar, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pointed out that the extremist had committed the worst crimes. For the “terrible, brutal, inhumane attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens, who were killed, raped, and degraded in the worst possible way,” al-Sinwar was responsible, Scholz said after a meeting with EU leaders in Brussels. Regarding the question of whether the release of the Israeli hostages still in the hands of Hamas would now become easier or more difficult, Scholz declined to speculate.