Hamas names Yahya Sinwar political leader amid Tehran attack aftermath

The Palestinian Hamas announced on Tuesday that Yahya Sinwar has become the new political leader of the movement, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, who died on Wednesday in Tehran in an attack attributed to Israel. Sinwar was previously the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He is considered one of the architects of the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

"The Islamic resistance movement announces that it has chosen Commander Yahya Sinwar as the chairman of the political bureau of the movement," Hamas, the Palestinian political party and armed movement that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by the West, said in a statement.

The 61-year-old Sinwar has been hiding in the Gaza Strip from Israeli attacks since October 7 and has not appeared publicly since then. After the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran a week ago, he became the highest-ranking surviving leader of Hamas.

The news of Sinwar's appointment as the head of Hamas was met in the Gaza Strip with a salvo of rockets, Reuters reported. Sinwar's selection is a "decisive signal" to Israel that Hamas "continues its resistance," one of the movement's representatives told AFP.

The new leader of Hamas was born in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. In the 1980s, he led the movement's internal security service, which tracked and eliminated individuals suspected of collaborating with the Jewish state.

Sinwar is perceived as an uncompromising enemy of Israel and a ruthless executor, emphasized Reuters. His fanatical devotion to Hamas and the fight against Israel is confirmed not only by other Hamas leaders but also by Israeli officials who know him.

According to Israeli services, Sinwar, along with the military wing commander of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, planned the attack on October 7. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history. It started the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 1,200 people were killed in the attack, and 251 were kidnapped. Deif was killed on July 13 in an Israeli airstrike near Khan Yunis.

At the end of May, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested the prosecution of Sinwar, Haniyeh, and Deif for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the attack on Israel on October 7. In a separate motion, the prosecutor also requested the issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, accusing them of committing crimes during the war in the Gaza Strip. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, nearly 40,000 Palestinians were killed in it.

It is estimated that Sinwar continues to lead Hamas’s fights against the Israeli army from hiding and also communicates with movement representatives who negotiate with Israel through intermediaries for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange for Palestinian detainees. Hamas’s political leadership resides in Qatar, where Haniyeh also lived permanently.