Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was the chief obstacle to securing a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict and his killing by Israel creates an “inflection point” that could accelerate talks to wind down the war, White House spokesperson John Kirby said Friday.

Sinwar was the architect of the group’s cross-border raids on October 7, 2023, that became the deadliest day in Israel’s history and triggered the Gaza war. His killing marks a huge success for Israel and a pivotal event in the yearlong conflict.

“We believe, continue to believe, that finding an end to the war is critical, and we also believe that Mr. Sinwar’s death… can provide an inflection point to getting there,” Kirby said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on Friday to press on with Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, suggesting the Sinwar killing will do little to halt the fighting, at least in the short term.

At the same time, he expressed openness in a phone call with US President Joe Biden to intensify efforts to reach a hostage release and ceasefire deal with Hamas following Sinwar’s killing.

Months of efforts by the US, Israel’s chief backer, to broker ceasefires with Hamas and Hezbollah have failed.

Kirby said ceasefire talks are not underway and he had no timetable for them to begin again.

“I wish I could tell you today that we’re getting the teams back together in Doha, and we’re starting afresh,” Kirby said. “That’s not where we are right now.”

In Germany Friday for talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Biden reiterated his call for Israel to pursue peace after the killing of Sinwar — which he described as “a moment of justice.”

“I told the prime minister of Israel yesterday, let’s also make this moment an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas,” he said.

Scholz also expressed hope that the death of Sinwar would open the door to a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages.

The two focused in their meeting on the war in Ukraine and their commitment to continue supporting the country against Russia’s invasion.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni agreed on Friday that a diplomatic solution must take precedence over violence, Mikati said at a news conference during a visit by the Italian leader.

“What is happening today is a lesson for all Lebanese to stay out of regional conflicts,” Mikati said.

Meloni called for the strengthening of the UN peacekeeping mission to Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.

“Only by strengthening UNIFIL while maintaining its impartiality, we will be able to turn the page,” Meloni said.

“I repeat that I consider targeting UNIFIL is unacceptable,” Meloni added, in reference to recent incidents in which the mission’s troops were hit by Israeli fire or had a confrontation with Israeli troops.

Israel has said it does not target UNIFIL and has urged the peacekeepers to evacuate south Lebanon, saying Hezbollah operatives sometimes fire at troops from beside UN posts. UNIFIL has resisted calls to pull out.

Hamas confirmed Friday that Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and reiterated its stance that hostages the terror group abducted from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.

The group’s staunch position pushed back against a statement by Netanyahu a day earlier that the military will keep fighting until the hostages are released and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.

The stands taken by the two sides signal, at least publicly, that they have not moved any closer to ending their conflict, even as Biden and other world leaders press the case that Sinwar’s killing is a turning point that should be used to unlock stalled ceasefire negotiations.

Khalil al-Hayya, who was Sinwar’s Qatar-based deputy and represented Hamas during several rounds of ceasefire negotiations, said the former Hamas leader died “confronting the occupation army until the last moment of his life.” Hamas will not return any of the hostages, he said, “before the end of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal from Gaza.”

Hamas heralded Sinwar in a statement, calling him a hero for “not retreating, brandishing his weapon, engaging and confronting the occupation army at the forefront of the ranks.”

The statement appeared to refer to a video the Israeli military circulated of Sinwar’s apparent last moments in which he sits on a chair in a severely damaged building, badly wounded and covered in dust. In the video, he raises his hand and flings a stick at an approaching Israeli reconnaissance drone. A tank shell fired at the house killed Sinwar shortly afterward.

Sinwar was the chief architect of the Hamas attack on Israel last year that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw the kidnapping of another 251. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas-led health authorities, whose figures cannot be independently verified and who do not distinguish combatants from civilians.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told President Isaac Herzog in a call Thursday that he may visit the region soon in a fresh push to reach a hostage deal.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a press briefing that Sinwar had been the “chief obstacle” to reaching an end to the war.

“That obstacle has obviously now been removed. We can’t predict that that means whoever replaces [Sinwar] will agree to a ceasefire, but it does remove what has been, in recent months, the chief obstacle to getting one,” he said.

Washington would now “redouble” its efforts and try to push forward the ceasefire proposal “that has been on the table for some time,” Miller said.

“I don’t want to predict too much what our efforts will look like over the course of the days because we are just hours after what is a seismic event that changes the nature of this conflict, but we believe it is an opportunity to try and bring an end to this war, and we’re determined to try and seize that opportunity,” Miller said.

Blinken has already spoken to the foreign ministers of Qatar and Saudi Arabia about bringing an end to the war and post-war arrangements for Gaza, Miller said.