Mastermind of October 7 attack named new Hamas political chief

The ascension of Yahya Sinwar cements Hamas as an armed-resistance movement against Israel, shifting away from a role as a political entity aimed at governing.

Yahya Sinwar, accused by Israel as being one of the masterminds of the brutal October 7 attack. Picture: AFP

Hamas said overnight on Tuesday it had selected Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza and ­architect of the October 7 attacks against Israel, to succeed the former head of its political wing, ­Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed last week in Tehran.

The ascension of Sinwar as the main leader of Hamas cements the Islamist group as an armed-resistance movement against Israel, shifting away from a role as a political entity aimed at governing. Sinwar also advocates a close alignment with Iran and his firmer grip on the group indicates he has overcome the voices within Hamas sceptical of that approach.

“Hamas is delivering a message that it is strategically lined up behind the armed resistance approach and sets Sinwar as anundisputed leader for the movement,” said Jehad Harb of the West Bank-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research.

The move complicates ceasefire negotiations, as Sinwar’s whereabouts are unknown to many and he goes days without communicating with Hamas political officials, Arab mediators have said.

Israel vowed to hunt down Sinwar after Hamas and other Palestinian factions led an attack in southern Israel on October 7 that left about 1200 people dead and more than 240 people were taken hostage. Sinwar crafted the plans for the October 7 attacks in Israel alongside Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, whom Israel says it killed last month.

Sinwar, believed to be directing Hamas’s war effort, has proven elusive, with Israel or its security partners unable to track him down. Israeli officials have said they believed he was in a tunnel in Gaza.

“There is only one place for Yahya Sinwar, and it is beside Mohammed Deif and the rest of the October 7 terrorists. That is the only place we’re preparing and intending for him,” said Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari.

Sinwar – whom the International Criminal Court is seeking to charge with war crimes, alongside Israeli leaders, for his role in leading the October 7 attacks – is betting that the militant group can declare victory in Gaza by simply surviving. He has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire and hostage deal and told mediators that Palestinian civilian deaths work to his advantage. “We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a message to Hamas officials seeking to brokeran agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials.

Hamas’s decision comes as the group has appeared divided between hardliners like Sinwar and Hamas political officials like Haniyeh, who had, according to Arab mediators, pushed Sinwar to acquiesce to some of Israel’s demands and agree to a ceasefire deal, to no avail.

The war has reduced much of once-bustling Gaza to rubble and has left dead more than 39,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials, who don’t say how many were combatants.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said Sinwar’s selection to head Hamas’s political wing merely codified the fact that he has been the decisive role in determining whether the group would support a ceasefire in Gaza.

“He has been and remains the primary decider when it comes to concluding the ceasefire,” he said.

Sinwar became Hamas’s head of Gaza affairs in 2017, which meant he oversaw the territory’s governance, social welfare system and military commanders. His elevation more closely ties together Hamas’s political and military wings. Haniyeh and other Hamas political leaders, for example, knew the group’s military wing was planning an attack on Israel but were kept in the dark by Sinwar regarding the scale and timing.

As Hamas’s political leader, Sinwar now heads a complex and secretive leadership structure that includes its military wingand political arm. In all, there are roughly 15 people at any time in the senior political leadership, which ostensibly determinesthe direction of Hamas by consensus. The reality since the start of the war, however, is that decision-making has been concentrated with Sinwar.

Sinwar joined the movement that became Hamas in the 1980s, becoming close to founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and setting up aninternal security police that tracked and killed suspected informants, according to the transcript of his confession to Israeli interrogators in 1988. He received multiple life sentences for murder and spent 22 years in prison, where he learned Hebrew, before being freed in a 2011 swap along with about 1000 other Palestinians for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held captive by Hamas.

The Wall Street Journal