Palestinian militant group Hamas is preparing to elect a political leader after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in an attack in Tehran on Wednesday that has been blamed on Israel.
Speculation has been rife over the crucial succession nearly 10 months after the war in Gaza began following Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October.
Qatar-based Haniyeh, who was elected Hamas’ political chief in 2017, was killed in a pre-dawn attack on his residence while he was visiting the Iranian capital for President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony.
The context of this succession — a violent death amid months of war in Gaza — could affect Hamas’s future far more than the individual personality of its leader.
Despite the emergence of pragmatists moving toward implicit recognition of Israel’s right to exist, Hamas members remain committed to an uncompromising approach to the struggle for a Palestinian state, including through armed means.
A source in the group told AFP that “relations with Arab and Islamic countries” would also be taken into account in the selection of the next leader.
Here are the names of some senior officials who are being considered as potential next political leaders of Hamas:
Khalil Al-Hayya
Khalil al-Hayya is the deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau in the Gaza Strip and is said to be well acquainted with Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader in the region.
In 2006, Haya was leading Hamas’ parliamentary faction, which had recently won elections. In the months that followed, political and administrative differences marked the beginning of a rift between the Islamist movement and Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Haya, who has repeatedly stressed the importance of armed struggle, has lost several members of her family in Israeli military operations, including a 2007 attack that targeted her home in the northern Gaza Strip.
Musa Abu Marzuq
The senior member of Hamas’ political bureau is seen as similar to Haniyeh in his pragmatic approach to negotiations.
For example, Marzouk has spoken in favor of a “long-term ceasefire” with Israel, and supported accepting the Palestinian borders drawn up after the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, which remains controversial to some in Hamas.
In the 1990s he lived in the United States, where he was arrested for allegedly raising funds for the movement’s armed wing. He has since lived in exile in several countries, including Jordan, Egypt and Qatar.
His name has been mentioned earlier as a possible successor to Hamas leaders, but to no avail.
Zaher Jabreen
The long-time treasurer of Hamas was close to Haniyeh and was sometimes described as his right-hand man.
After being held in Israeli jails, he was released in 2011 in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been held hostage for five years.
Jabarin, who has strong ties to Turkey, where he once lived, has recruited people for large-scale money laundering activities, two of whom were arrested in Israel in 2018.
They have also participated in deadly operations carried out by Hamas’s armed wing.
Khaled Meshaal
Haniyeh’s predecessors have lived in exile in Jordan, Qatar, Syria and other countries since 1967.
He was made head of the movement after Israel assassinated Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdelaziz al-Rantisi.
In 1997, Meshaal survived an assassination attempt by agents of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad by poisoning him in Amman.
While in Syria, he criticized the Damascus regime for its violent suppression of anti-government protests, which caused tensions with Iran, Syria’s strategic ally and a major supporter of Hamas.
Yahya Sinwar
Sinwar, elected to lead Hamas in the Gaza Strip in February 2017, is a hardliner and the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack.
The 61-year-old ascetic spent 23 years in Israeli jails before being released in a prisoner exchange in 2011.
Born in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, he joined Hamas when it was founded in 1987, the year of the first intifada, or uprising.
He founded the group’s internal security service, Majd.
The former elite commander of Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, is wanted by Israel and is also on the United States’ list of sanctioned international terrorists.
Sinwar, who maintains a high degree of secrecy about his activities, has not appeared in public since October 7.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
