A reorganization in the ranks of Hamas. The Palestinian movement announced in a statement released this Saturday that the head of Gaza Yahya Sinwar – the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack – has become its new leader, following the assassination on July 31 in Tehran of its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, attributed to Israel by Hamas.
“The Islamic resistance movement Hamas announces the appointment of leader Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement's political bureau,” the statement said. Minutes after the announcement, a salvo of rockets was fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, claimed by the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing.
This choice is “a strong message addressed to the occupier (Israel) that Hamas is continuing on the path of resistance,” a Palestinian movement official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Hard-line supporter
Elected in February 2017 as head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinouar is among the supporters of a hard line against Israel. Aged 61, this ascetic man spent 23 years in Israeli prisons before being released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange. Born in Khan Younis, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip, he joined Hamas when it was created in 1987, the year of the first Intifada (uprising). He then founded Majd, Hamas' internal security service.
A former elite commander in the al-Qassam Brigades and the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, he is wanted by Israel and placed on the American list of “international terrorists.” Yahya Sinouar surrounds his movements with the utmost secrecy. He has not appeared in public since October 7. According to American intelligence services cited by the New York Times, he was in May in the vast network of tunnels under the city of Khan Younis.
While he did not have the final say in the group's decisions, according to intelligence services, his voice was already preponderant within Hamas. “No decision can be made without consulting Yahya Sinwar,” said Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Hamas member and political analyst. “He is not an ordinary leader, he is a powerful personality,” he also said.
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