Two Hamas sources said the Palestinian governing group is moving toward appointing a Doha-based ruling committee rather than a single successor to its chief Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli troops last week.
The approach of the Hamas leadership is not to appoint a successor to the late chief, Martyr Yahya Sinwar, until their next elections, scheduled for March, “if conditions permit”, a source familiar with the group told AFP.
The five-member committee, formed in August following the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, will “take over the leadership of the group”, the source said.
The committee was formed to facilitate decision-making given the difficulty of communication with Sinwar in Gaza before his death.
Sinwar was named the militant group’s Gaza chief in 2017, before becoming overall leader of Hamas following Haniyeh’s assassination in July.
The source said the committee is composed of representatives from the two Palestinian territories and the community, namely Khalil al-Haya for Gaza, Zaher Jabarin for the West Bank and Khaled Meshaal for Palestinians abroad.
It also includes Mohammed Darwish, the head of Hamas’s Shura Advisory Council and the secretary of the political bureau, who has never been identified for security reasons.
All current members of the committee are based in Qatar.
According to the source, the committee is tasked with “controlling the movement during war and extraordinary circumstances as well as its future plans”.
He said it is authorized to take “strategic decisions”.
Another source in the group said the Hamas leadership discussed a proposal that was made “internally” to appoint a political head without announcing his name.
But, the source said, leaders preferred to rule through committee.
Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza on Wednesday, more than a year after a devastating war in the region sparked by an October 7 attack by Hamas.
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