Hamas has picked Yahya Sinwar, the terrorist group’s top official in Gaza, to lead its highest decision-making body.
The decision was announced Aug. 6, seven days after Sinwar’s predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, died in a targeted explosion while at a guest house in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
“The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announces the selection of Commander Yahya Sinwar as the head of the political bureau of the movement, succeeding the martyr Commander Ismail Haniyeh, may Allah have mercy on him,” the group said in a statement, according to a translation by Reuters.
Sinwar, 61, has been leading Hamas in the Gaza Strip since 2017. He is seen by Israel as the mastermind behind behind the Oct. 7 invasion, during which Hamas-led terrorists launched a massacre in Israeli territory, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Born in a refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Sinwar joined Hamas in the late 1980s, raising to prominence as the founder of the group’s intelligence arm, known as the Majd.
In 1989, Sinwar was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for abducting and murdering two Israeli soldiers. He remained in an Israeli prison until 2021, when Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas and held in Gaza for five years.
Since his release from prison, Sinwar has participated in numerous attacks against Israel, including the so-called 11-Day War in May 2021, during which Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group fired rockets at Israel and drew retaliatory Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
In 2015, the U.S. Department of State designated Sinwar a global terrorist. The designation means that it is illegal for American citizens to provide him with any financial or material help, and that any assets he may have in the United States must be frozen.
Sinwar is believed to have been hiding out in Gaza, where Hamas spent more than a decade building an extensive labyrinth of tunnels.
“The hunt for Sinwar will not stop until we catch him, dead or alive,” Israeli Defense Force spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a press conference upon releasing the footage, noting that the video was taken from a surveillance camera inside the tunnel, where soldiers have been pursuing Sinwar since they surrounded his home in December.
The death of Haniyeh—which Hamas has blamed on Israel, but Israel hasn’t taken credit for—makes Sinwar the most powerful Hamas figure. With Hamas’s remaining fighting force under his direct control, Sinwar is now in a position to accept or reject any ceasefire or hostage release deal with Israel.
