BEIRUT – The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli forces in Gaza this week leaves the Palestinian militant group considering new leadership for the second time in less than three months.
Will Hamas now turn away from its hard-line wing or will it double down, and what will it mean for the group’s future and for the revival of cease-fire and hostage exchange negotiations between Hamas and Israel?
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Sinwar replaced Hamas' previous leader, Ismail Haniyeh, after Haniyeh was killed in July in a blast in Iran that was widely blamed on Israel.
As an architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, Sinwar was a defiant choice at a time when some expected the militant group to take a more conciliatory approach and seek to end the conflict.
Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday.
Sinwar's death has little immediate impact on Hamas
Killing Sinwar marked a major symbolic victory for Israel in its yearlong war against Hamas in Gaza. But it has also allowed Hamas to claim him as a hero who was killed in the battlefield, not hiding in a tunnel.
While the group is on the defensive and has been largely forced underground in Gaza, it continues to fight Israeli forces in the enclave and to exert political influence.
Bassem Naim, a Qatar-based member of the group's political bureau, said in a statement that Israel had killed other Hamas leaders, including its founding leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who were killed by airstrikes in 2004.
“Hamas each time became stronger and more popular, and these leaders became an icon for future generations,” he said.
The impact of Sinwar's death on military operations in Gaza remains to be seen. But Sadeq Abu Amer, head of the Turkey-based think tank Palestinian Dialogue Group, said that “there will be no significant impact on the political structure of Hamas."
When Sinwar was appointed, “the situation was basically arranged so that Hamas could manage its political affairs and manage the organization independently of Sinwar” because of the difficulties of communication between Sinwar and Hamas' political leaders outside of Gaza, he said.
Most matters were managed by “collective leadership” between the head of the group’s Shura Council and officials in charge of the West Bank, Gaza and regions abroad, he said. The notable exception: Sinwar controlled all matters related to Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The search for a replacement
Sinwar’s term was a temporary one and would have expired in the second half of 2025.
“Hamas will not move urgently at the present time to choose a head of the political bureau,” Thabet al-Amour, a political analyst in Gaza, said. He noted that Khalil al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy based in Qatar, was already managing executive affairs and can continue to do so.
Abu Amer agreed that Hamas might opt to keep running with the current “formula of collective leadership.” Another possibility, he said would be the election of one of the three regional leaders: al-Hayya, who is in charge of Gaza; Zaher Jibril, in charge of the West Bank; or Khaled Mashaal, in charge of areas outside of the Palestinian territories.
The group also might select a leader without publicly announcing the name “for security reasons,” he said.
Who are the contenders?
If Hamas names a replacement for Sinwar, Khaled Mashaal and Khalil al-Hayya, both members of Hamas' political leadership based in Qatar, are widely considered the most likely contenders.
Al-Hayya had served as Sinwar’s deputy and as the head of the group’s delegation in cease-fire negotiations, both in the current war and during a previous conflict in 2014. He is a longtime official with the group and survived an Israeli airstrike that hit his home in Gaza in 2007, killing several of his family members.
Al-Hayya is seen as close to Iran, but as less of a hard-liner than Sinwar. He was close to Haniyeh.
In an interview with The Associated Press in April, al-Hayya said Hamas was willing to agree to truce of at least five years with Israel and that if an independent Palestinian state were created along 1967 borders, the group would dissolve its military wing and become a purely political party.
Mashaal, who served as the group's political leader from 1996 to 2017, is seen as a relatively moderate figure. He has good relations with Turkey and Qatar, although his relations with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah have been troubled due to his support for the Syrian opposition in the country's 2011 civil war.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a founding member of Hamas and the first head of its political bureau, is another potential candidate who is seen as a moderate.
Some have suggested that Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, a key military figure in Gaza, could replace him — if he is still alive. Al-Amour downplayed that possibility.
“Mohammed Sinwar is the head of the field battle, but he will not be Sinwar’s heir as head of the political bureau,” he said. Rather, al-Amour said the death of Sinwar, “one of the most prominent hawks within the movement,” is likely to lead to “the advancement of a trend or direction that can be described as doves” via the group’s leadership abroad.
Cease-fire negotiations
In the first public statement by a Hamas official after Sinwar's death, al-Hayya appeared to take a hard line on negotiations for a cease-fire deal that would see the release of some 100 Israeli hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war and who are believed to be held in Gaza.
There will be no hostage release without "the end of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from Gaza,” al-Hayya said.
But some believe that the group may now moderate its stance.
In particular, Mashaal “shows more flexibility when it comes to collaborating with the Qataris and Egyptians to reach cease-fire in Gaza, which would also have a positive impact on the situation in Lebanon,” Saad Abdullah Al-Hamid, a Saudi political analyst, said.
But Sinwar's death could leave some “practical difficulties in completing a prisoner exchange,” Abu Amer said.
The Gaza-based leader was “the only one in the Hamas leadership who held the secrets of this file,” he said, including the location of all the hostages.
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Associated Press staff writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.