Sinwar to replace Haniyeh as Hamas political leader, cementing his power

Haniyeh, who was based in Qatar and seen as a more moderate face of the movement, was killed Wednesday while visiting Tehran in an attack Hamas blamed on Israel. Israel has not commented on the attack but informed U.S. officials immediately afterward that it was responsible.

It remains unclear how Sinwar, in hiding and atop Israel’s most-wanted list, will carry out Haniyeh’s diplomatic duties, including serving as a chief negotiator in cease-fire talks, which have stalled again in the aftermath of the assassination. During months of on-again, off-again negotiations, Haniyeh has shuttled between Arab capitals, but it was Sinwar who had the final word on any agreement.

“There is only one place for Yehiya Sinwar, and it is beside Mohammed Deif and the rest of the Oct. 7 terrorists,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told Al Arabiya TV shortly after Monday’s announcement. Deif, the head of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli attack last month, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Hamas has not confirmed his death.

In a statement, Hamas expressed confidence in Sinwar “as its leader at this sensitive stage,” while praising Haniyeh for his “wise and open leadership.”

Haniyeh and Sinwar represented Hamas’s two intertwined strands — a Palestinian nationalist political party, and a militant Islamist movement dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Both men grew up in Gaza’s impoverished refugee camps, set up to house Palestinians displaced and dispossessed during the founding of Israel in 1948. And both were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for their role in Oct. 7.

Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza after the attacks by Hamas-led fighters, who killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 253 others hostage. Israel’s retaliatory war on Gaza has leveled much of the enclave and killed nearly 40,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of dead are women and children.

Haniyeh was close to Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in 2004. Haniyeh rose through Hamas’s ranks and was appointed to the top political role in 2017. Shortly after, he left Gaza and later set up a diplomatic base in Doha, the Qatari capital.

Sinwar, in contrast, helped establish Hamas’s military wing and spent more than 20 years in Israeli jails, where he learned Hebrew and burnished his reputation among fellow militants. In 2017, he was chosen to replace Haniyeh as the head of Hamas in Gaza, blurring the lines between the group’s political and military wings.

Over the years, Haniyeh built relations with Hamas’s internal rival, the Fatah party that heads the Palestinian Authority, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While Sinwar is seen as a more divisive figure, Palestinian officials in Ramallah expressed support for him Monday.

“The decision to choose Yehiya Sinwar is a logical and expected response to the assassination of the martyr Ismail Haniyeh,” Jibril Rajoub, a prominent Fatah figure, told the Iran-aligned Al-Mayadeen TV channel Monday. “Sinwar is a pragmatic figure, a realistic and logical man.”

Haniyeh’s predecessor, Khaled Meshal, was seen as a leading contender to return to the role, at least temporarily. But his poor relations with Iran, Hamas’s top financial backer, were thought to have worked against him.

In Sinwar, Hamas has chosen “the option of extremism closest to Iran,” according to Ahmed Awad, head of the Center for Future Studies at Al-Quds University in Ramallah. It “means that Gaza will be a decision-maker in the region,” he said.

Hajar Harb in London, Hazel Balousha in Cairo and Sufian Taha in Jerusalem contributed to this report.