BEIRUT — The killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar by Israeli forces in Gaza this week leaves the Palestinian group contemplating new management for the second time in lower than three months.
Will Hamas now flip away from its hard-line wing or will it double down, and what’s going to it imply for the group’s future and for the revival of cease-fire and hostage trade negotiations between Hamas and Israel?
Sinwar changed Hamas’ earlier chief, Ismail Haniyeh, after Haniyeh was killed in July in a blast in Iran that was extensively blamed on Israel.
As an architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, assault in southern Israel that sparked the conflict in Gaza, Sinwar was a defiant alternative at a time when some anticipated the fighter group to take a extra conciliatory strategy and search to finish the battle.
Sinwar’s killing gave the impression to be an opportunity front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday.
Sinwar’s dying has little fast influence on Hamas
Killing Sinwar marked a significant symbolic victory for Israel in its yearlong conflict towards Hamas in Gaza. Nevertheless it has additionally allowed Hamas to assert him as a hero who was killed within the battlefield, not hiding in a tunnel.
Whereas the group is on the defensive and has been largely compelled underground in Gaza, it continues to combat Israeli forces within the enclave and to exert political affect.
Bassem Naim, a Qatar-based member of the group’s political bureau, stated in an announcement that Israel had killed different Hamas leaders, together with its founding chief, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who have been killed by airstrikes in 2004.
“Hamas every time grew to become stronger and extra standard, and these leaders grew to become an icon for future generations,” he stated.
The influence of Sinwar’s dying on navy operations in Gaza stays to be seen. However Sadeq Abu Amer, head of the Turkey-based assume tank Palestinian Dialogue Group, stated that “there shall be no vital influence on the political construction of Hamas.”
When Sinwar was appointed, “the state of affairs was mainly organized in order that Hamas might handle its political affairs and handle the group independently of Sinwar” due to the difficulties of communication between Sinwar and Hamas’ political leaders outdoors of Gaza, he stated.
Most issues have been managed by “collective management” between the top of the group’s Shura Council and officers accountable for the West Financial institution, Gaza and areas overseas, he stated. The notable exception: Sinwar managed all issues associated to Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The seek for a alternative
Sinwar’s time period was a brief one and would have expired within the second half of 2025.
“Hamas is not going to transfer urgently nowadays to decide on a head of the political bureau,” Thabet al-Amour, a political analyst in Gaza, stated. He famous that Khalil al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy primarily based in Qatar, was already managing govt affairs and might proceed to take action.
Abu Amer agreed that Hamas would possibly decide to maintain working with the present “formulation of collective management.” One other risk, he stated could be the election of one of many three regional leaders: al-Hayya, who’s accountable for Gaza; Zaher Jibril, accountable for the West Financial institution; or Khaled Mashaal, accountable for areas outdoors of the Palestinian territories.
The group additionally would possibly choose a pacesetter with out publicly asserting the identify “for safety causes,” he stated.
Who’re the contenders?
If Hamas names a alternative for Sinwar, Khaled Mashaal and Khalil al-Hayya, each members of Hamas’ political management primarily based in Qatar, are extensively thought-about the probably contenders.
Al-Hayya had served as Sinwar’s deputy and because the head of the group’s delegation in cease-fire negotiations, each within the present conflict and through a earlier battle in 2014. He’s a longtime official with the group and survived an Israeli airstrike that hit his residence in Gaza in 2007, killing a number of of his members of the family.
Al-Hayya is seen as near Iran, however as much less of a hard-liner than Sinwar. He was near Haniyeh.
In an interview with The Related Press in April, al-Hayya stated Hamas was keen to conform to truce of a minimum of 5 years with Israel and that if an impartial Palestinian state have been created alongside 1967 borders, the group would dissolve its navy wing and turn out to be a purely political get together.
Mashaal, who served because the group’s political chief from 1996 to 2017, is seen as a comparatively average determine. He has good relations with Turkey and Qatar, though his relations with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah have been troubled as a result of his assist for the Syrian opposition within the nation’s 2011 civil conflict.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a founding member of Hamas and the primary head of its political bureau, is one other potential candidate who’s seen as a average.
Some have urged that Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, a key navy determine in Gaza, might substitute him — if he’s nonetheless alive. Al-Amour downplayed that risk.
“Mohammed Sinwar is the top of the sector battle, however he is not going to be Sinwar’s inheritor as head of the political bureau,” he stated. Fairly, al-Amour stated the dying of Sinwar, “some of the distinguished hawks inside the motion,” is more likely to result in “the development of a pattern or path that may be described as doves” by way of the group’s management overseas.
Stop-fire negotiations
Within the first public assertion by a Hamas official after Sinwar’s dying, al-Hayya appeared to take a tough line on negotiations for a cease-fire deal that will see the discharge of some 100 Israeli hostages captured within the Oct. 7 assault that sparked the conflict and who’re believed to be held in Gaza.
There shall be no hostage launch with out “the top of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from Gaza,” al-Hayya stated.
However some imagine that the group might now average its stance.
Specifically, Mashaal “reveals extra flexibility with regards to collaborating with the Qataris and Egyptians to succeed in cease-fire in Gaza, which might even have a constructive influence on the state of affairs in Lebanon,” Saad Abdullah Al-Hamid, a Saudi political analyst, stated.
However Sinwar’s dying might depart some “sensible difficulties in finishing a prisoner trade,” Abu Amer stated.
The Gaza-based chief was “the one one within the Hamas management who held the secrets and techniques of this file,” he stated, together with the situation of all of the hostages.
Related Press workers author Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.
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