A Week After Ismail Haniyeh's Murder, Hamas Names New Political Leader

New Delhi: Hamas named Yahya Sinwar as its new leader on Tuesday, August 6.

The announcement comes after Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, Iran, last week.

Sinwar will take charge of Hamas’ political bureau after Haniyeh’s assassination. Hamas had said that Haniyeh was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran”.

“The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announces the selection of Commander Yahya Sinwar as the head of the political bureau of the movement, succeeding the martyr Commander Ismail Haniyeh, may [God] have mercy on him,” the group said, according to Al Jazeera.

Sinwar, the Palestinian group’s top leader in Gaza, is seen by Israel to have been the mastermind of the October 7 attacks on Israel, which killed some 1,200 people and led Israel to strike Gaza in a move described often as ‘genocidal’. Nearly half of the hostages Hamas took were released during a truce in November, 2023.

While Israel, the United States and the European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, India does not consider it so.

Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst told Al Jazeera, that the move sends a signal – “as far as negotiations of a ceasefire is concerned, Gaza calls the shots.”

With inputs from DW.