Hamas Selects October 7 Terror Mastermind Yahya Sinwar as New Leader

Latest Developments

The Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas announced on August 6 that Yahya Sinwar — the Gaza-based leader who masterminded the October 7 Hamas onslaught on southern Israel — had been named as the new head of its political bureau. In a statement delivered to the Agence France-Presse news agency, an unnamed Hamas official said that the choice of Sinwar to replace Ismail Haniyeh — the Hamas leader assassinated in Tehran on July 31 — sent “a strong message to the occupation (Israel) that Hamas continues its path of resistance.” Separately, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told the Qatari-owned channel Al-Jazeera that Sinwar “is the one who led the fighting for more than 305 days and is still steadfast in the field.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reacted to the announcement by pledging that Sinwar would share the same fate as Muhammad Deif, the senior Hamas military commander who was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on July 13. “There is only one place for Yahya Sinwar, and it is beside Muhammad Deif and the rest of the October 7 terrorists. That is the only place we’re preparing and intending for him,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya broadcaster.

Expert Analysis

“Hamas’s leadership has been eviscerated by Israel over the last nine months. Only a few recognizable names remain. Yahya Sinwar, the man who launched the war in the Middle East on October 7, has now emerged as the single leader atop Hamas. However, Sinwar is living in a Gaza tunnel on borrowed time. When the Israelis catch up to him, serious questions remain about the future of Hamas. Chaos looms, and it bodes poorly for the future of this Iran-backed terrorist group.” — Jonathan Schanzer, FDD Senior Vice-President for Research

“One bloodthirsty Iran-backed Jew-hater with American blood on his hands replaces another. His fate will be the same. Hamas increasingly looks like an organization on its last legs — perhaps Sinwar’s legs.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor

“Sinwar checked many boxes that Hamas considers essential when selecting a new leader. He spent years in an Israeli prison for murder, rose through the ranks of Hamas, and orchestrated the October 7 attack. However, this choice may ultimately represent a significant miscalculation. For Hamas to survive, it requires stability at the top, and appointing a leader who is currently hiding in Gaza while being pursued by the IDF may not have been in the best interest of the group.” — Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal 

Sinwar Consolidates Hold Over Hamas

Since the October 7 onslaught 10 months ago, Sinwar has been in hiding in Gaza. A video released by the IDF in February showed an apparently healthy Sinwar strolling through an underground tunnel in Gaza accompanied by several family members — the first time he had been spotted since the massacre in Israel.

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Palestinian affairs analyst Ohad Hemo said the appointment of Sinwar had formalized his status as “the most powerful figure” inside Hamas. Calling it a “show of faith” by a terrorist organization “whose leadership is rapidly sinking,” Hemo noted that the selection of Sinwar by Hamas’s 50-man Shura Council — a consultative body with members in Gaza, the West Bank, abroad, and among Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails — had returned “the formal center of Hamas power to Gaza,” given that many of its top leadership have been based abroad, including Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal, a founding member of the Hamas politburo. On August 4, the Saudi-owned news channel Alhadath reported that Sinwar had conveyed a message opposing Mashal’s appointment as Haniyeh’s successor to a meeting in Qatar on the grounds that he wanted someone with closer ties to the Iranian leadership to take the helm.

The 61-year-old Sinwar is a veteran Hamas terrorist who was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences by an Israeli court in 1988 for the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel. However, he was released in 2011 as a part of a deal that involved exchanging more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Classified as a “Specially Designated Terrorist” by the United States in 2015, Sinwar became the leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017. Michael Koubi, an Israeli interrogator who questioned Sinwar on several occasions, recalled that Sinwar was totally devoted to the terrorist organization. “He told me Hamas is my wife, Hamas is my child. Hamas for me is everything,” Koubi said. Yuval Bitton, a former senior Israel Prison Service official who also encountered Sinwar, recalled that the terrorist leader had been successfully treated by doctors in Israel for a brain tumor. “We saved his life, and this is his thanks,” Bitton said, referring to the October 7 atrocities.

In a speech in Gaza in December 2022, Sinwar hinted at the assault that would unfold the following October, telling the crowd, “We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide.” More than 1,200 people were killed and over 250 kidnapped on October 7 amid atrocities that included mass rape, decapitation, and the mutilation of the dead. The attack marked the bloodiest act of terror in Israel’s history as well as the worst single day of violence targeting Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.

Related Analysis

“CIA Director Reports Hamas Commanders Pressing Sinwar to End War,” FDD Flash Brief

“Hamas, Sinwar Defiant 80 Days Into War,” by Seth J. Frantzman

“Israel Vows to Eliminate Hamas Terror Leader Sinwar,” FDD Flash Brief