The group’s chief negotiator is reportedly a frontrunner to succeed Yahya Sinwar
Hamas will select a brand new chief in March however will hold his identification a secret for safety causes, a spokesman for the Palestinian militant group has mentioned. Till then, the group shall be run by a committee of high officers.
The Gaza-based militant group has been with out an total chief since final Wednesday, when Yahya Sinwar was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops in Rafah. Sinwar, who beforehand served because the motion’s chief in Gaza, assumed the highest place in August, after the pinnacle of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran.
With the commander of the group’s navy wing, Mohammed Deif, killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in July, total management duties have been handed to a five-man committee, a Hamas spokesman informed the BBC on Monday.
This committee shall be made up of Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Meshaal, Zaher Jabarin, Muhammad Darwish, and a fifth unnamed particular person, the spokesman mentioned. As soon as a brand new chief is chosen, he added, his identify shall be stored below wraps for safety causes.
Khalil al-Hayya is predicated in Qatar and presently heads the Hamas delegation in ceasefire talks with Israel. Al-Hayya acknowledged Sinwar’s loss of life in a video message final week, describing the slain militant as a “holy warrior” and “fallen martyr.”
Two Hamas officers informed the BBC that al-Hayya has assumed a lot of Sinwar’s duties, and is taken into account a powerful candidate to switch him atop the group.
Alongside Deif, Sinwar was broadly considered the mastermind behind the October 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel that prompted the continued battle. “Sinwar was answerable for essentially the most brutal assault in opposition to Israel in our historical past,” Israel Protection Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari mentioned in a televised assertion final week. “For the previous yr, Sinwar tried to flee justice. He failed. We mentioned we’d discover him and convey him to justice, and we did.”
Hamas maintains that it’s going to proceed waging battle in opposition to Israel and won’t free the roughly 100 hostages it holds in Gaza till Israel withdraws from the enclave and releases scores of Palestinian prisoners in its jails. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed the UN Basic Meeting final month that if Hamas doesn’t give up, the IDF will hold preventing “till we obtain complete victory.”
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