Sinwar will now lead the resistance movement from an undisclosed location in Gaza, amid fears of a wider escalation in the region.
Hamas has named its Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, as its overall political chief to succeed Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran last week.
The Palestinian group’s announcement came Tuesday as tensions soar in the Middle East, with Iran vowing revenge on Israel for Haniyeh’s killing on its soil.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the July 31 attack.
Considered the architect of the October 7 attack on Israel, Sinwar will now attempt to advance the movement through uncertain times across the region from an undisclosed location in Gaza.
The Gaza-based Palestinian leader is Israel’s public enemy number one. By choosing him as head of its political bureau, Hamas is sending a message of defiance to the Israeli government.
But it remains unclear how Sinwar will be able to communicate with his Hamas colleagues, manage the movement’s day-to-day political operations and oversee ceasefire negotiations in Gaza while in hiding.
Israeli officials have made no secret of their desire to kill him.
Born in 1962 in Khan Younis, Sinwar is often portrayed as one of Hamas’ most hardline leaders. He was arrested several times by Israel in the early 1980s for his involvement in anti-occupation activism at the Islamic University of Gaza.
After graduating, he helped create a network of fighters for armed resistance against Israel. The group would later become the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
Sinwar joined Hamas as one of its leaders almost immediately after the group was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1987. The following year, he was arrested by Israeli forces and sentenced to four life sentences – the equivalent of 426 years in prison – for his alleged involvement in the capture and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four suspected Palestinian spies.
He spent 23 years in an Israeli prison, where he learned Hebrew and became familiar with Israeli affairs and domestic politics. He was released in 2011 as part of the prisoner exchange deal that freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas.
After his release, Sinwar quickly rose through the ranks of Hamas. In 2012, he was elected to the group’s political bureau and tasked with coordinating activities with the al-Qassam Brigades.
He played a leading political and military role in Israel’s seven-week offensive against Gaza in 2014. The following year, the United States designated Sinwar a “specially designated global terrorist.”
In 2017, Sinwar became Hamas’s leader in Gaza, succeeding Haniyeh, who was elected chairman of the group’s political bureau.
Unlike Haniyeh, who had traveled the region and given speeches throughout the Gaza war until his assassination, Sinwar has remained silent since October 7.
But in a 2021 interview with Vice News, Sinwar said that while the Palestinians do not seek war because of its high cost, they will not “wave the white flag.”
“For long periods of time, we have attempted peaceful and popular resistance. We hoped that the world, free peoples and international organizations would stand with our people and prevent the occupation from committing crimes and massacring our people. Unfortunately, the world has stood idly by,” he said.
Sinwar was likely describing the Great March of Return, in which Palestinians demonstrated weekly for months on the Gaza border in 2018 and 2019 but were met with a violent Israeli crackdown that killed more than 220 people and injured many more.
Asked about Hamas’ tactics, including indiscriminate rocket fire that could injure civilians, Sinwar said the Palestinians were fighting with the means at their disposal. He accused Israel of deliberately killing Palestinian civilians en masse, despite sophisticated and accurate weaponry.
“Does the world expect us to be well-behaved victims when we are being killed, slaughtered without making a sound?” Sinwar had asked.
