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Hamas has chosen Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as its new political leader, in a move that consolidates its grip on the Palestinian militant movement.
Sinwar, Israel’s most wanted man, succeeds Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week in an attack that Hamas and Iran blamed on Israel.
The choice of Sinwar, a ruthless figure who is the leader of Hamas in Gaza, is likely to be seen by Israel as a provocative move and threatens to further complicate stalled US-led efforts to broker a deal that would secure the release of the hostages and end the war in the besieged Strip.
Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas political official, said Sinwar was chosen “unanimously,” adding that the militant group’s team involved in negotiations under Haniyeh would continue “under Sinwar’s supervision.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Sinwar a “dead man walking” for his role in orchestrating the Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,200 people, according to Israel, and triggered the 10-month war that has killed nearly 40,000 and wounded hundreds of thousands in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials. About 250 people have also been taken hostage.
“Yahya Sinwar is a terrorist, responsible for the most brutal terrorist attack in history,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Tuesday. “There is only one place for Yahya Sinwar, and that is next to Mohammed Deif. [a Hamas leader Israel said it has killed] and the rest of the October 7 terrorists. This is the only place where we are preparing and intend to do so.”
Diplomats in the region had expected Haniyeh to be replaced by another member of the political leadership in Qatar, where he had been living in exile. His killing was seen as a setback for diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, as he was the main interlocutor in dealings with Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
Sinwar’s appointment as political leader could risk hardening the position of both Netanyahu and Hamas in the negotiations.
A diplomat briefed on the talks said: “In the end you always had to convince Sinwar to accept the deal. But you lost a voice in Haniyeh, who could have done that. Others can help but obviously they don’t have the same weight as Haniyeh.”
The United States and its allies believe the talks are essential to ending the war and defusing rising regional tensions.
Shortly before Hamas announced that Sinwar would take over the political leadership, US President Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, as Washington continued to push for a hostage-taking deal and a ceasefire.
In separate calls with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Biden spoke “about their efforts to de-escalate regional tensions” and the three leaders “agreed on the urgency of concluding the process as soon as possible,” the White House said.
Born in a slum in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, Sinwar rose to prominence in the 1980s as an adviser to the wheelchair-bound founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
Sinwar helped create Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and was later tasked with leading the feared internal security apparatus, which hunted down suspected Palestinian collaborators, earning him the nickname “the Butcher of Khan Younis.”
He spent more than 22 years in an Israeli prison for his role in eliminating collaborators and was released as part of a 2011 prisoner swap in which more than 1,000 Palestinians were released in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas in Gaza.
Those who spent time with Sinwar described him as a charismatic man of few words, with a quick temper and an authoritative presence.
In the days aVsceker the October 7 attacks, he was seen in the tunnel network under Gaza, according to some of the freed hostages. Israeli intelligence believes Sinwar avoided capture or assassination in southern Gaza by remaining inside Hamas’s vast network of underground tunnels.
Earlier this year, the Israeli military released a video in which it said Sinwar, accompanied by his family, was moving through one of these tunnels under Khan Younis.
His assassination was a key aim of the Israeli campaign to “destroy” Hamas in Gaza.
Read more from Neri Zilber from Tel Aviv
