Hamas has named the mastermind behind the 7 October attack, Yahya Sinwar, as its new leader.
The group’s last chief, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran last month in what Hamas called a “treacherous Zionist raid on his residence”.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Who is Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar?
Haniyeh’s successor has been chosen as Sinwar, the architect of the attack that saw Hamas militants enter southern Israel, kill 1,200 people and take 250 more hostage.
In response, Israel’s military campaign has so far killed almost 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and left the densely populated enclave in ruins.
“The Islamic resistance movement Hamas announces the selection of Commander Yahya Sinwar as the head of the political bureau of the movement, succeeding the martyr Commander Ismail Haniyeh, may Allah have mercy on him,” Hamas said in a brief statement.
News of the announcement was met with a salvo of rockets from Gaza from militants still fighting in the besieged enclave.
It comes as Israel continues to brace for a response over the killing of Haniyeh.
“The appointment means that Israel needs to face Sinwar over a solution to Gaza war,” said a regional diplomat familiar with the talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar, which are aimed at bringing a halt to the fighting in Gaza and a return of 115 Israeli and foreign hostages still held in the enclave.
“It is a message of toughness and it is uncompromising,” they added.
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Yahya Sinwar during a rally to mark the annual al-Quds Day in Gaza in 2023. Pic: Reuters
Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based, Iran-aligned group, congratulated Sinwar on his ascendancy, saying it “confirms goals that the enemy [Israel] seeks from killing leaders and officials failed in achieving its outcome”.
Sinwar has spent half his life in Israeli prisons and was Hamas’s most powerful leader left alive following the assassination of Haniyeh.
He has been hiding in Gaza, evading ongoing Israeli attempts to kill him.
The assassination of Haniyeh has also left the region bubbling on the edge of wider-war as Israel said it killed other senior Hamas leaders including deputy leader Saleh al Arouri, who was killed in Beirut, and Mohammed Deif, the movement’s military commander.
Israel’s military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Sinwar was responsible for the 7 October attacks and vowed they would continue to hunt him.
“There is only one place for Yahya Sinwar, and it is beside Mohammed Deif and the rest of the 7 October terrorists,” he told Al-Arabiya television, according to a statement released by the military.
“That is the only place we’re preparing and intending for him,” he added.
Hamas seemingly united around the choice of Sinwar as Khaled Meshaal, a former leader who was seen as one of Haniyeh’s potential successors, was said to have backed the Gaza-based chief.
According to senior sources, Meshaal backed Sinwar “in loyalty to Gaza and its people”.
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Sinwar, 61, was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis and studied Arabic at the Islamic University of Gaza, which was founded in 1978 by the two men who went on to set up Hamas.
While there, he became close to cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who co-founded Hamas in 1987 as a Gaza-based political splinter group of the Muslim brotherhood.
In 2017, Sinwar was elected as Hamas’s leader within Gaza after gaining a reputation as a ruthless enforcer.
He is suspected of killing fellow Palestinians thought to have collaborated with Israel.
