Hamas on Tuesday has announced Yahya Sinwar as the Hamas group’s new political head following the assassination of their leader Ismail Haniyeh
Ismail Haniyeh was killed last week after an Israel airstrike hit his residence in Tehran, where the Hamas leader had participated in the inauguration ceremony of Iranian New President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The hamas group has blamed Israel for the strike that also killed Haniyeh’s bodyguard.
Hamas announces the selection of leader Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement’s political bureau. Sinwar, by the announcement has succeeded the late leader Ismail Haniyeh, may God have mercy on him,” said the group in a statement on Tuesday.
The spokesperson, Israel Defense Forces Avichay Adraee blasted the decision to install Sinwar, the man Israel accuses of being the architect of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Adraee said in his statement on twitter page (now X) that there is only one place reserved for Yahya Sinwar and that is next to Mohammed Al-Deif, Marwan Issa, and the rest of the Hamas ISIS members responsible for the October 7 massacre whom we killed,”
Isreal foreign Minister Katze called Yahya Sinwar an “arch-murderer” and said his appointment “is another reason to bring about his quick elimination and erasing the memory of this organization (Hamas) from the face of the earth
Sinwar, the Hamas leader in charge of the day-to-day governance in Gaza prior to Oct. 7, is believed to be hiding in the labyrinth of tunnel used by Hamas militants in Gaza to hide weapons, fighters and hostages, Israeli officials have said.
The 61 year old fugitive leader, Sinwar was allegedly last seen in a 42 seconds recorded filmed showing him and the family fleeing into a tunnel three days after the attack in southern Gaza, according to the IDF.
We will hunt him, we will not stop until we capture him, dead or alive,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, said in a televised statement in February.
Born in a Gaza refugee camp, Sinwar joined Hamas after it was founded in 1987, gaining a reputation for brutality after he reportedly helped to form the militant group’s internal security force, according to a profile of him by the European Council on foriegn Relations a think tank.
Sinwar, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988 for planning to kill two Israeli soldiers as well as the killing of four Palestinians he suspected of collaborating with Israel. He was released in 2011 as one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for Gilad Sheilt an Israeli soldier held by Hamas for more than five years.
After his release, Sinwar rose quickly through the ranks of Hamas and was elected to become the group’s leader in a secret ballot in 2017. On taking over, Sinwar attempted to improve relations with Egypt and Fatah, the secular Palestinian political party that partially runs the occupied West Bank and rivals Hamas in Gaza, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Sinwar has been in hiding since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking around 240 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Isreal has since declared war in Gaza and has killed over 40,000 people in the enclave, according to officials report
HAMAS has a military wing known as the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades that has conducted many anti-Israel attacks in both Israel and the Palestinian territories since the 1990s. These attacks have included large-scale bombings against Israeli civilian targets, small-arms attacks, improvised roadside explosives, and rocket attacks.
The group in early 2006 won legislative elections in the Palestinian territories, ending the secular Fatah party’s hold on the Palestinian Authority and challenging Fatah’s leadership of the Palestinian nationalist movement.
HAMAS continues to refuse to recognize or renounce violent resistance against Israel and in early 2008 conducted a suicide bombing, killing one civilian, as well as numerous rocket and mortar attacks that have injured civilians.
The US Government has designated HAMAS a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
