CAIRO, August 6. /TASS/. Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, has been elected head of the Hamas political bureau.
"Yahya Sinwar has been elected head of the movement’s political bureau instead of the late Ismail Haniyeh," Hamas said in a statement posted on its Telegram cannel.
On July 31, the radical Palestinian movement Hamas said that Politburo Chairman Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike on his residence in Tehran, where he had arrived to attend the inauguration Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, Iran's elite military units) said that Haniyeh was killed by a short-range projectile with a warhead weighing about 7 kilograms, adding that his assassination was organized by Israel with the US’ support.
Yahya Sinwar
The new Hamas leader was born in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. He is believed to be among the founders of Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and Hamas’ internal security force Majd, which is known for its punitive operations against Palestinians collaborating with Israel.
He was arrested by the Israeli authorities in 1988 and in 1989 convicted to five life sentences on charges of murdering 12 people. IN 2011, he was released from prison within a swap of Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who had been abducted by Palestinian militants in Gaza in 2006.
Shortly after the release, Sinwar joined the Hamas political bureau and was elected the movement’s leader in Gaza in 2017.
He is believed to be in the Gaza Strip now but there is no verified information about his whereabouts. He has made no public statements since the outbreak of the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.
He has been under the UK and US sanctions since November 2023 and in May 2024 International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan requested an arrest warrant for Sinwar.