Israel After the killing of Hanija: Sinwar new Hamas leader
Less than a week after the killing of Hamas foreign leader Ismail Haniya, the Islamist terror group has appointed the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Jihia al-Sinwar, as the new leader of the organization. This was announced by Hamas on the Telegram platform. He is now the head of Hamas' political bureau, it said. Sinwar is considered the mastermind behind the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel.
06.08.2024, 20:48
SDA
Sinwar is at the top of the Israeli hit list. He lives in an unknown location in the Gaza Strip - it is suspected that he is hiding in the organization's tunnels under the coastal area. His predecessor Hanija resided in Qatar's capital Doha and was considered Hamas' chief diplomat.
Sinwar's former deputy Mohammed Deif, the commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades and thus the military wing of Hamas, was the target of an Israeli missile attack in July. Israel declared him dead last week. Hanija, on the other hand, was killed last week in an assassination attempt in the Iranian capital Tehran.
Sinwar belongs to the founding generation of Hamas. He was born in 1962 in the refugee camp of Chan Junis in the south of the Gaza Strip. His family came from the area around the coastal town of Ashkelon, now part of Israeli territory. He spent more than two decades in Israeli custody, during which time he learned to speak Hebrew fluently.
When Hamas formed during the first Palestinian uprising, the Intifada, at the end of the 1980s in the fight against the Israeli occupation, Sinwar was also involved in setting up the military arm of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades. In the early years of the Islamist movement, Sinwar was responsible for the fight against suspected collaborators with Israel within its own ranks. His actions were so brutal that he became known as the "Butcher of Khan Yunis".
