After the death of Yahya Shinwar, the leader of Hamas, yesterday (17/10) in Gaza, by the Israeli Armed Forces, the question that arises is who will succeed him at the head of the organization.
With Israel having also assassinated Sinwar’s predecessor, Ismail Haniya, last July, assuming the position is seen as particularly dangerous, yet it remains the highest distinction for Hamas members. In detail, who are the most likely successors:
Marouane Issa: The “Shadow Man”
In March, Israel said it had killed Marwan Issa, the deputy to then-Hamas military leader Mohammed Dayef, but Hamas has not confirmed his death. Dave was killed in an Israeli airstrike in July.
Issa, who was nicknamed the “shadow man” by Palestinians for his ability to stay off enemy radars, had risen to No. 3 in the Islamist militant group. He and the other two top Hamas leaders formed a secret three-member military council that made strategic decisions.
Kaled Messal: The Mossad assassination attempt
Meshaal, 68, was head of Hamas from 2004 to 2017. He became known around the world in 1997 when Israeli agents injected him with poison in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in a botched assassination mission. He is now based in Qatar along with several other senior Hamas officials.
Mohammad Sinwar: Sinwar’s brother
His brother Yahya Sinwar is one of the most senior, veteran commanders of Hamas’ armed wing. Born on September 15, 1975, he rarely appears in public or speaks to the media.
Mohammad Sinwar, like his brother, has been one of the top targets on Israel’s wanted list and, according to Hamas sources, has survived several Israeli attempts on his life, including airstrikes and bomb attacks on his outskirts road. The sources said the last attempt on his life, until the latest war in Gaza, was in 2021.
Khalil Al Haya: Sinwar’s deputy
Haya was Shinuar’s deputy and recently led the Hamas team in indirect ceasefire talks with Israel under Haniya’s watch. Haya was in the same residence when Haniya was hit by a short-range missile, according to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in Tehran, but not in the same apartment at the time of the strike.
The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, reported that the explosion that killed Haniya came from a bomb. In 2007, an Israeli strike hit the home of his extended family, killing several relatives, and in 2014 an attack on his home killed his eldest son.
Mahmoud Al Zahar: The “general” in the surgical apron
Zahar was a surgeon by profession. Friends and foes used to call him “The General” for his hard-line views on Israel and other opponents of Hamas. Zahar has not made any public statements or appearances since October 7 and his fate remains unknown.
The 79-year-old official survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2003. He was the first foreign minister appointed by Hamas after it seized power in Gaza in 2007, in a brief civil war with the secular Palestinian Authority, a year after it won parliamentary elections. elections.
Mohammad Shabana: The Initiator of the Tunnel Network
Shabana, better known as Abu Anas Shabana, is one of Hamas’s remaining top and veteran armed commanders, heading its battalion in Rafah in the south. Hamas sources said Shabana was instrumental in developing the tunnel network in Rafah, which was used for cross-border attacks on Israeli troops, including a cross-border attack in 2006 that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Shabana assumed leadership of the Rafah order after Israel killed three of the group’s main commanders during a 50-day war in 2014, during which the Islamist faction said it had kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.
Rawhi Mustaha: Sinwar’s confidant
Mustaha was Sinwar’s most trusted and strongest ally within Hamas. Along with Sinwar, Mustaha established Hamas’s first security apparatus in the late 1980s, which was responsible for tracking down and killing Palestinians accused of spying for Israel.
He was released from an Israeli prison along with Sinwar in 2011 and recently took over coordination between the group in Gaza and Egyptian security officials on a number of issues, including the operation of the Rafah border crossing.
Israel said on October 3 that Mustaha had been killed in a strike in Gaza three months earlier. Hamas has never confirmed or denied, and Mustaha’s fate remains unclear.
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