Khaled Mashal, chief of the Hamas office abroad, has taken the helm of the Palestinian organisation following the assassination of Yahya Sinwar, chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, report agencies.
Khaled Mashal has taken on the role of acting Hamas leader and is now responsible for communication with the key parties involved in talks on the release of Israeli hostages.
According to reports, ‘the Hamas leadership has informed Turkish, Qatari and Egyptian officials of Sinwar’s death in an operation in Tel al-Sultan and stressed that after his death, talks on exchanging prisoners and ending the war will become increasingly difficult.”
The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that Sinwar had been killed in an Israeli military operation in southern Gaza on October 16.
In a statement, the Lebanese group has offered its “deepest condolences” over Sinwar’s killing. It pledged to continue its “support for our Palestinian people”, report agencies.
Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel for more than a year in solidarity with Palestinians in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip. In recent weeks, the group, which has also had a number of its leaders killed in Israeli attacks, has been fighting an Israeli ground offensive into southern Lebanon.
The Iranian foreign ministry just released a statement saying that the Islamic Republic strongly condemns the assassination and the killings of Palestinian leaders, including Yahya Sinwar.
On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has “settled its account” with Sinwar but the “war is not yet ended”.
Netanyahu said in televised remarks that “light is prevailing over darkness” in the region and that Sinwar’s death is an “important landmark” in the decline of the group.
Hamas will no longer rule Gaza, he said.
Yahya Sinwar was the architect of the 7 October attacks that killed 1,200 Israeli civilians and in which a further 250 were taken hostage. Israel has been at war with Hamas since the group’s October 7 attack.
After a year-long manhunt, Israeli media reported that Sinwar, a prime target for Israel, had been killed “by chance” by regular IDF soldiers – not as the result of a targeted operation. Sinwar was reportedly killed in combat alongside two other militants in the city of Rafah.
The Guardian reports, Israeli troops took Sinwar’s body to Israel for DNA and dental record testing. Once there was confirmation of his identity, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his government celebrated the death of Sinwar as the “beginning of the end” but made clear that the war, which has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, is not over: “The mission ahead of us is still unfinished.”
Every day that the war in Gaza continues, civilians face death and contend with catastrophic conditions. Just Thursday, reports emerged of an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 28 people sheltering in a school in Gaza City. The attack comes amid accusations Israel is attempting to forcibly expel the remaining population in a renewed ground campaign in the north of the territory.
Earlier this week, widely shared footage showed Shaban al-Dalou, a teenage Palestinian, who was attached to an IV drip burning to death in a blaze caused by an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said the killing of Yahya Sinwar would lead to the strengthening of "resistance" in the region, hours after Israel said it had killed the Hamas chief, reports AFP.
“The spirit of resistance will be strengthened. He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forward his path toward the liberation of Palestine," the mission said in a post on X. "As long as occupation and aggression exist, resistance will endure, for the martyr remains alive and a source of inspiration.”
Who was Yahya Sinwar?
The elusive leader of Hamas managed to evade death for the last year, hiding mostly in tunnels in Gaza, despite being the Israeli military’s number one target since the 7 October attacks.
Sinwar was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis in 1962. His family had been forced to flee and became refugees in 1948 during what Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe). Sinwar became an Islamist activist and joined Hamas in the 1980s when it first formed. He was arrested not long afterwards and given four life sentences for attempted murder and sabotage. Sinwar spent 22 years in Israeli jails, where he learned Hebrew and read Israeli news. After he was released in a prisoner swap in 2011, he married, had children and returned to Hamas.
What’s next for Hamas?
Yahya Sinwar’s younger brother, Mohammed, is believed to still be alive and highly influential – and a natural successor. Another candidate is Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy leader of Hamas in Gaza, who has been one of the lead negotiators during ceasefire talks in Qatar. The third potential option is Khaled Mashal, a former political head of Hamas, reports The Guardian.
Regardless of who will succeed Sinwar, Hamas will be in disarray. The casualties sustained among its fighters and the gutting of its leadership mean it will not be easy to recover for the militant group.
