Yahya Sinwar’s Death Triggers Hamas Leadership Reshuffle in Rafah, Gaza

Hamas’s leadership reshuffle unfolded after Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas political leader in Gaza, was martyred in a clash with an Israeli security force in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza in October 2024.

“The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) announced that it would hold an electoral round to elect a new leader to succeed Yahya Sinwar, who was martyred in October 2024”

Al-Jazeera Net

Middle East Eye described Sinwar as Hamas’s “espionage chief who oversees Gaza,” noting he was elected last Monday to head Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza and replaced Ismail Haniyeh.

Al-Jazeera Net

Al Jazeera Net later said Hamas would hold an electoral round to elect a new leader to succeed Yahya Sinwar, confirming that the elections were not decided in the first round and that a second round would be held later.

The same Al Jazeera Net account said that after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024, Yahya Sinwar assumed the leadership of the movement until his martyrdom in Rafah.

Middle East Eye also said Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza and that he was arrested by Israel in 1988 for terrorist activity and sentenced to four life sentences.

As Hamas prepared to choose a successor, بوابة أخبار اليوم الإلكترونية reported that RT said Khalil al-Hayya had clinched the presidency of the movement with 65% of the votes, compared with 35% for Khaled Meshaal.

Taher al-Nuno, a senior Hamas official and member of the negotiating delegation, denied those reports and said that what had been circulated claiming the presidency for Khalil al-Hayya with 65% to 35% is not true and that the process is not over yet.

Middle East Eye

Al Jazeera Net said Hamas’s statement confirmed the elections were not decided in the first round and that a second round would be held later, “in accordance with the movement's rules and regulations.”

The same Al Jazeera Net account said Taher al-Nuno had revealed that the movement has already begun completing its internal elections after the vacancies left by Israeli assassinations, stressing that the results would be announced “with full transparency” as soon as the whole process is complete.

بوابة أخبار اليوم الإلكترونية also said Media reports published by the Israeli channel I24 News detailed that Hamas conducted the first phase of its internal elections, where Khalil al-Hayya was chosen as the movement's Gaza Strip leader, while Khaled Meshaal retained his position as the movement's external leader.

The leadership contest is taking place against a backdrop of assassinations that Hamas says forced it to fill vacancies, with Al Jazeera Net citing Taher al-Nuno’s account that “the assassinations carried out by the occupation forced the movement to fill the vacancies.”

“Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas espionage chief who oversees Gaza”

Middle East Eye

Al Jazeera Net said Hamas’s internal process uses a “shura mechanism and the silent elections,” and it described how the movement’s elections do not rely on individual candidacy because all members of the relevant council are considered candidates.

Le Monde.fr reported that Iranian state television and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced on Wednesday, July 31 that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, 61, had been assassinated in Tehran, and it quoted the Revolutionary Guards statement that “he and one of his bodyguards were killed as martyrs.”

Le Monde.fr also said Haniyeh was in the Iranian capital to attend the inauguration of the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and that on Tuesday he had met the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Middle East Eye added that Sinwar’s election process was described as taking place without incident, and it quoted Yahya Moussa saying Sinwar’s two-week election process—marking the start of the Palestinian legislative elections—took place without incident.