After two days of marathon talks in Doha, Hamas appointed Yahya Sinwar as its new leader, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week.
Sinwar has served as the group’s leader inside the Gaza Strip since 2017. He will now become the leader of the group’s political branch.
A senior Hamas official told the BBC that Hamas’ leadership had unanimously chosen Sinwar as the movement’s leader.
The announcement comes at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East, with Iran and its allies threatening to retaliate for Haniyeh’s killing, which they blame on Israel. Israel has yet to comment.
During two days in Doha, intensive meetings involving Hamas leaders have been making choices for the group’s next leader.
Many scenarios were discussed, but in the end, only two names emerged: Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Hassan Darwish, a mysterious figure who heads the General Shura Council, a body that elects Hamas’ Politburo.
The council voted unanimously to select Sinwar, in what a Hamas official described to the BBC as “a message of defiance to Israel”.
“They killed Haniyeh, who was flexible and open to solutions. Now they have to deal with Sinwar and the military leadership,” the official said.
Before his death, Ismail Haniyeh was seen by regional diplomats as a pragmatic figure compared to others in Hamas – a key driving force behind the group’s political activity.
In contrast, Yahya Sinwar is considered one of Hamas’ most radical figures.
Sinwar is currently at the top of Israel’s most-wanted list. Israeli security agencies believe he was the mastermind behind the October 7, 2023 attacks, which left more than 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage back to Gaza.
The 61-year-old has not been seen in public since the October attack and is believed to be hiding “10 floors underground” in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in June.
Sinwar was born in Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962.
In the late 1980s, Sinwar founded a Hamas security agency called Majd, which was tasked with targeting Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.
He spent most of his life in Israeli prisons – and after his third arrest in 1988, he was sentenced to four life sentences.
However, he was among 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners released by Israel in a 2011 exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held by Hamas for more than five years.
Sinwar was appointed head of the group’s political office in the Gaza Strip in 2017, a position he has held to date.
The United States blacklisted Sinwar as an “international terrorist”.
