The Hamas terror group on Tuesday officially announced that Yahya Sinwar will be its new political leader, following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week.
The leader of Hamas in Gaza since 2017, Sinwar is widely considered the architect of the October 7 invasion and massacre in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, sparking the ongoing war in Gaza. Hamas avowedly seeks to destroy Israel.
Sinwar was convicted in 1989 of leading the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers, as well as four Palestinians he suspected of cooperating with Israel. He was given four life sentences but was released after 22 years as part of the deal to return captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.
He has a reputation for being brutal and calculated and is said to speak fluent Hebrew as a result of his time in Israeli prisons. He received life-saving brain surgery in Israel while he was a prisoner, as recounted by the dentist who identified the tumor in a New York Times article in May.
Asked about the Hamas announcement in an interview with the Saudi-based Al Arabiya news channel on Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said, “There is only one place for Yahya Sinwar and that is next to Muhammad Deif and all the terrorists who are responsible for October 7. This is the only place we are preparing and designating for him.”
The IDF confirmed on August 1 that it had killed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, in an airstrike in southern Gaza last month. Hamas has not confirmed his death.
Israeli officials claim that Sinwar has been forced to hunker down in Hamas’s vast network of tunnels beneath Gaza since the slaughter he planned and orchestrated 10 months ago, leaving him isolated from the group’s activists. They have indicated he is likely in tunnels under Khan Younis or Rafah, surrounded by hostages.
In February, the IDF published a video, filmed on October 10, said to show Sinwar walking through a Gaza tunnel with several of his family members. “The hunt for Sinwar will not stop until we catch him, dead or alive,” the IDF spokesman said in a press conference upon releasing the footage.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz echoed Hagari’s comments, releasing a statement that said Hamas’s decision was “yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him and wipe this vile organization off the face of the earth.”
Sinwar was selected by Hamas’s 50-strong Shura Council, a consultative body composed of officials elected by Hamas members in four chapters: Gaza, the West Bank, the diaspora and security prisoners in Israeli jails.
Sinwar “is now the most powerful figure in Hamas, formally too,” Palestinian affairs analyst Ohad Hemo noted on Channel 12 news on Tuesday evening. “That was already essentially the case, now it’s official.”
“It’s a show of faith” by the terror group, “whose leadership is rapidly shrinking,” Hemo added, “and it returns the formal center of Hamas power to Gaza,” whereas in recent years much of the official leadership was overseas — including Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal, both based in Qatar.
Both Hamas and Iran have blamed Israel for the explosion in a Tehran guesthouse that killed Haniyeh early last Wednesday morning. The Islamic Republic has vowed to retaliate for his killing. Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death.
An unsourced report in the Jewish Chronicle published Tuesday said that the bomb that killed Haniyeh was planted hours before he was assassinated by two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps agents recruited by the Mossad and not weeks or months in advance as previously reported. According to the report, the device was placed under Haniyeh’s bed and detonated remotely by a robot.
“This is happening precisely when Hamas is in its worst shape ever in Gaza,” said Hemo, as the IDF works to destroy its military and governance capabilities. “It’s a highly significant move” by Hamas, “an expression of faith in the man who has been leading it in Gaza and, if I may so, into the abyss.”
A senior Hamas official told AFP after the announcement that the selection of Sinwar as Hamas’s new political leader sends a “strong message” to Israel.
The choice is “a strong message to the occupation (Israel) that Hamas continues its path of resistance,” the official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.