Hamas this week named Yahya Sinwar, the group’s top official in Gaza, as the new leader of its political bloc following the assassination of political leader Ismail Haniyeh last week. The assassination was said to have been carried out by Israel and has pushed tensions in the Middle East to their highest level since October.
The news of the appointment came as a surprise, given that Sinwar – unlike Haniyeh, who was based in Qatar and was the diplomatic face of the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza – has been operating from tunnels since October 7, when the group launched an operation that killed an estimated 1,139 people and captured over 200.
Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, a number likely much higher if deaths from disease, starvation and other consequences of the war are included.
The murder of Haniyeh, as well as the killing of children, women, youth and the elderly in the Gaza Strip, “underscores that the resistance and its leaders are at the center of the struggle alongside their people,” Hamas said in a statement.
Hamas “remains steadfast on the battlefield and in politics,” Osama Hamdan, the group’s spokesman, told Al Jazeera. “The person who takes the lead today is the one who led the fighting for more than 305 days and who is still steadfast in the field.”
Since October 7, Sinwar has been at the top of Israel’s hit list and the country’s politicians have repeatedly threatened to assassinate him.
“The appointment of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is another compelling reason to swiftly remove him and wipe this despicable organization from the face of the earth,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“(Sinwar) was and remains the primary decision maker when it comes to concluding the ceasefire,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said from Washington, DC. “(He will) decide whether to move forward with a ceasefire that will obviously help so many Palestinians in desperate need, women, children, men who have been caught in the crossfire… It’s really up to him.”
Consolidation of control
In 2013, Sinwar was elected to Hamas’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip before replacing Haniyeh as leader of the movement in the enclave in 2017.
His influence and reputation in Hamas grew to such an extent that he came to the attention of Israeli security officials. According to a report in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly rejected plans to kill Sinwar on more than one occasion. Netanyahu’s office has denied this.
In his role as Hamas leader in Gaza, Sinwar focused on building the group’s military capacity and foreign relations, restoring relations with Egypt and rebuilding ties with Iran, which had sided with Hamas in the 2011 Syrian civil war.
Sinwar’s rise may be due to his higher profile than other Hamas leaders. For example, some analysts believe that Mohammad Deif, the head of Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, was one of the real masterminds of the October 7 attack, along with Sinwar. Israel claims to have assassinated Deif in an attack on July 13, but Hamas has not yet announced his death. Unlike Sinwar, who appeared publicly before October and gave speeches to Palestinians in Gaza, Deif has not been seen in public for years and there are few photographs of him.
Analysts believe that Sinwar has had a strong influence on Hamas’ position in ceasefire negotiations and the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel since the beginning of the conflict.
“It is both a message of disrespect for the organization and a consolidation of his control over the movement,” Omar Rahman, a member of the Middle East Council, said of Sinwar’s appointment. “Israel has been desperate to kill both Sinwar and Hamas, and now, 10 months later, he is the head of the movement.”
The election of Sinwar after Haniyeh’s assassination was “symbolic,” said Hani Awad, a researcher at the Doha Institute’s Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. It shows “that the entire Hamas leadership is behind Gaza and its resistance,” he said.
Future of ceasefire negotiations
The Hamas political bloc determines policy, while its military wing, the Izz al-Qassam Brigades, offers armed resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
It remains unclear how Sinwar will fill that role, as he lives in besieged Gaza. Haniyeh had led Hamas’ negotiations with mediators before he was assassinated in Tehran.
Khaled Meshaal, who led the Hamas political bloc before Haniyeh from 1996 to 2017, was originally considered a possible successor, but his power has experienced “fluctuations” and he no longer has the influence he once had, Rahman said.
Compared to the moderate politicians Haniyeh and Meshaal, Sinwar is perceived as an uncompromising figure.
“Meshaal and Sinwar represent two different directions within Hamas. Meshaal is more cautious and pragmatic in his relationship with Iran and its allies, while Sinwar believes there is no alternative to an alliance with Iran and Hezbollah,” Awad said.
“Organizationally, Sinwar represents continuity rather than change,” he said. Sinwar and Haniyeh have “the same foreign policy and the same positions toward Iran and its proxies.”
Under Sinwar’s leadership, ceasefire talks could still move forward, although analysts say the Israeli side has been the biggest obstacle in recent months.
Israel’s repeated escalations, especially the assassination of Haniya, have made ceasefire negotiations increasingly difficult.
“In a way, the negotiations were already a farce,” Rahman said. “Netanyahu has put obstacles in the way of an agreement at every turn, including, of course, the assassination of Haniyeh, who was leading the negotiations. However, the hostages were not held by Haniyeh, but by those (of Hamas) in Gaza. So I think there is a way that negotiations can still take place, either through emissaries in contact with the leaders in Gaza or by empowering a negotiator outside the territory.”
Although Sinwar is still on the Israeli authorities’ death list, his appointment as Hamas leader is unlikely to change much for the negotiation process.
“Israel, at least officially, is not negotiating directly with Hamas, as there should not be direct negotiations with a terrorist organization,” Eyal Lurie-Pardes, visiting fellow at the Middle East Institute’s Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs program, told Al Jazeera. “In the past, any agreements with Hamas were always made with the help of a third party… it is unlikely that Sinwar’s nomination would change Israel’s stance.”
And even though the war has now entered its eleventh month, Israel’s ongoing campaign of devastation in Gaza and the killing of Haniya have done little to diminish Sinwar’s influence over Hamas or the region.
“After October 7 and everything that happened after that, we can see that Sinwar and the hardliners are on the rise,” Rahman said.
