Hamas’s pick of Yahya Sinwar as leader makes a ceasefire less likely

IF THERE WAS ever any doubt over where the balance of power lay within Hamas, it was surely vanquished on August 6th when the militant group named Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza and the architect of the October 7th attacks, as its supreme leader. The appointment sends a clear signal that Hamas’s most extreme faction is now in charge. This dims hopes of a ceasefire that might end a war that has already claimed nearly 40,000 Gazan lives.

Officials from Hamas gathered in Qatar in recent days for the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh, the former head of its political bureau, who was assassinated in Tehran on July 30th. Discussions over who would take his job were held behind closed doors. Though Mr Sinwar had gained influence in Hamas since its attack on Israel, he had not been expected to win the top position.

Several of the group’s leaders in Doha had been pushing for Khaled Meshal as a counter to Mr Sinwar’s authority. Since being elected in 2017 as head of the Gaza political bureau, one of three regional ones, Mr Sinwar has centralised power and swept aside his rivals. In theory his presence in Gaza should have disqualified him from leading the entire organisation, since its bylaws stipulate that the political bureau’s overall head should reside outside Gaza. Yet its leaders backed Mr Sinwar unanimously, say sources in Hamas.

The appointment is technically only temporary, until an internal election can be held next year. Yet with the war in Gaza still raging, Mr Sinwar may not be challenged for some time. It means Hamas is becoming more of an underground guerrilla movement with a leader hiding in tunnels, instead of shuttling between the capitals of the region. In recent months the Qataris threatened Hamas’s leaders with eviction from Doha unless they showed more flexibility in the ceasefire talks. Such a threat will have less effect on Mr Sinwar.

In messages passed via couriers from Gaza, Mr Sinwar had insisted that the new leader would need to be on good terms with Iran and Syria—two of Hamas’s key backers. “Sinwar got much closer to Iran than anyone else in the movement in the past few years,” says Azzam Tamimi, a writer with close links to Hamas’s leadership. This amounted, in effect, to a veto on appointing Mr Meshal.

Yet Hamas has long had an uneasy relationship with Iran. For years the Islamic Republic was its main state sponsor, and a regular source of arms and money. But a Sunni Islamist group and a revolutionary Shia regime made for uneasy bedfellows. When Syria slid into civil war in 2011, Iran propped up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while Hamas sided with his mostly Sunni opposition. Mr Meshal, who led Hamas at the time, closed the group’s headquarters in Damascus in 2012.

He spent the next few years trying to cultivate ties with the Sunni Arab powers: in 2015, for example, he made a rare visit to Saudi Arabia to meet King Salman. Some Hamas leaders backed his effort, hoping the Gulf would provide them with investment and legitimacy. Others preferred to patch up their relations with Iran.

In 2017 Mr Meshal spearheaded efforts to revise the group’s charter in a document that softened its stance on Israel and appeared to nudge it towards accepting a two-state solution. Yet Mr Sinwar did all he could to undermine Mr Meshal’s reforms, fuelling enmity between the two men.

Had Mr Meshal been named the group’s new leader—an appointment Turkey and Qatar had urged—it would have weakened Hamas’s pro-Iranian faction. The choice of Mr Sinwar means that Gulf states will keep their distance from the group, viewing him as a dangerous ideologue aligned with their main regional foe. Moreover, his appointment will further sideline the group’s external leaders, who are generally seen as more moderate and keener on diplomacy than is Mr Sinwar.

Those in Hamas who look to diplomacy have been knocked back by Mr Sinwar’s promotion. Indeed, Haniyeh had been seeking a ceasefire with Israel, while Mr Sinwar sought to prolong the conflict. With Mr Sinwar cementing his control of Gaza and now heading Hamas’s political bureau, the chances of a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages look slimmer. ■

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