Hamas Appoints Yahya Sinwar as New General Leader

Hamas has appointed Yahya Sinwar as its new general leader, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran last week.

Sinwar has been the group’s leader in the Gaza Strip since 2017. He will now become the leader of its political wing.

Sinwar is believed to still be in the Gaza Strip, although his current whereabouts are unknown.

The announcement comes at a time of heightened tension in the Middle East, with Iran and its allies threatening retaliation for Israel’s killing of Haniyeh. Israel has not commented.

“The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announces the selection of leader Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement’s political bureau,” a Hamas statement said.

Sinwar currently tops Israel’s most wanted list. Israeli security agencies believe he orchestrated the planning and execution of the October 7, 2023 attacks, which left more than 1,200 people dead and 251 returned to Gaza as hostages.

Hamas has yet to reveal details of how the group’s political bureau leadership headed by Sinwar will operate.

The 61-year-old has not been seen in public since the October attacks and is believed to be hiding “10 floors underground” in Gaza. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this in June.

In the late 1980s, Sinwar founded Hamas’ security service known as Majd, which targeted, among others, suspected Palestinian collaborators with Israel.

Sinwar spent much of his life in Israeli prisons, and after his third arrest in 1988, he was sentenced to four life terms.

However, he was one of 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners released by Israel in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier held captive for more than five years by Hamas.

He later returned to his position as a senior Hamas leader and was appointed head of the group’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip in 2017.

The United States has placed Sinwar on its blacklist of “international terrorists.”