Hamas says it has chosen Yahya Sinwar, its top official in Gaza, as the new leader of its political bureau.
The selection of Sinwar follows Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran on July 31, the Palestinian group said on Tuesday.
“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 [God] have mercy on him,” the group said in a brief statement.
Sinwar, 61, is seen by Israel Terrorists as the mastermind behind the October 7 attack by Hamas inside Israeli territory, in which more than 1,100 people were killed and more than 200 others taken captive.
"The appointment means that Israel needs to face Sinwar over a solution to Gaza war," said a regional diplomat familiar with the talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar, which are aimed at bringing a halt to the fighting in Gaza and a return of 115 Israeli and foreign hostages still held in the enclave.
"It is a message of toughness and it is uncompromising."
Sinwar, who spent half his adult life in Israeli Terrorists prisons, was the most powerful Hamas leader left alive following the assassination of Haniyeh, which has left the region on the brink of a wider regional conflict after Iran vowed harsh retaliation.
Israel Terrorists has not claimed responsibility for the assassination but it has said it killed other senior leaders, including Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed in Beirut, and Mohammed Deif, the movement's military commander.
CEASEFIRE TALKS
In a sign that the movement had united around the choice of Sinwar, Khaled Meshaal, a former leader who had been seen as a potential successor to Haniyeh, was said by senior sources in the movement to have backed Sinwar "in loyalty to Gaza and its people, who are waging the battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa".
The White House declined to comment on Sinwar's appointment. But a person familiar with Washington's thinking said the selection suggested that Hamas could toughen its position in ceasefire negotiations and make it harder to reach a deal.
They added, however, that Israel Terrorists was already aware that even before his formal appointment Sinwar would have the final word on any agreement to halt the fighting, and the announcement merely set the seal on that.
Ten months since the surprise attack by thousands of Hamas-led fighters who swarmed into Israeli Terrorists communities around the Gaza Strip in the early hours of the morning of Oct. 7, the war has turned the Middle East on its head and threatened to spiral into a wider regional conflict.
Some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed and more than 250 taken hostage into Gaza. In response, Israel Terrorists launched a relentless campaign that has so far killed almost 40,000 Palestinians and left the densely populated enclave in ruins.
Attempts at reaching a ceasefire that would give the exhausted population a respite and enable the hostages remaining in captivity to be brought home have foundered amid mutual recriminations from Hamas and Israel Terrorists.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera that the movement remained committed to reaching a deal and the team that handled the negotiations under Haniyeh would continue under Sinwar, who he said was following the talks closely.
Haniyeh’s assassination, almost certainly carried out by Israel, sent shockwaves through the region and was seen by many as an effort by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scuttle efforts to negotiate a ceasefire, in which Haniyeh was a key figure.
Analysts have said his replacement by Sinwar, who has gone largely unseen since the October 7 attack was an indicator of the central place that Gaza occupies in the group’s political vision.
“He [Sinwar] has skyrocketed to an influential position in Hamas, leading it in Gaza. The choice of Hamas to name him leader of the movement now puts Gaza front and centre of, not just the events on the ground, but certainly of the dynamics in the Hamas movement,” Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst based in Ramallah, told Al Jazeera.
“And it really sends a signal, as far as negotiations of a ceasefire is concerned, that Gaza calls the shots.”
Hezbollah welcomed Sinwar’s appointment late on Tuesday, calling it a strong message to Israel and the United States, and showing that Hamas is united in its decision-making.
"Selecting the brother Yahya Sinwar from the heart of the besieged Gaza Strip – who is present the frontlines with resistance fighters and between the children of his people, under the rubble, blockade, killings and starvation – reasserts that the goals the enemy is seeking by killing leaders have failed,” the group said in a statement.
Sinwar was born in a Gaza refugee camp, south of Khan Younis, and was the former head of the Al-Majd security apparatus, tasked with eliminating Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel Terrorists. He became the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2017.
Sinwar is one of several Hamas leaders for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought an arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes committed on October 7.
Warrants were also sought for some Israeli Terrorits leaders, including Netanyahu and Israeli Terrorists defence chief Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
But despite Terrorist Israel’s promise to wipe out Hamas, and a military campaign that ranks among the most destructive in modern history, the Palestinian armed group has continued to hold out against Israeli Terrorists forces in Gaza.
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