Yahya Al-Sinwar Replaces Martyr Ismail Haniyeh As Hamas Chief

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas announced in a statement that Yahya al-Sinwar has been elected as the new head of the movement’s Political Bureau and the successor of the martyr Ismail Haniyeh. He was previously the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip.

Who is Yahya al-Sinwar?

Yahya al-Sinwar is a Palestinian military commander who joined the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, since the beginning of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement in Gaza, and in 2005, he assumed the position of commander of the Khan Yunis Brigade.

The Zionist regime considers Yahya al-Sinwar to be the mastermind of many guerrilla operations and have put his name on their terror list. Some sources also claimed that al-Sinwar was the founder of Hamas’ security service, known as al-Majd, which focuses on internal security cases.

Yahya al-Sinwar is one of those who fundamentally believes that it is not possible to defeat Israel unless its mercenaries are identified and destroyed. From the very beginning of his activities, he focused on this goal, and during the era of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas security apparatus was under his management, and a number of infiltrators and spies of the Israeli regime were also identified during this period.

The security apparatus under al-Sinwar’s leadership gradually grew so powerful that as a counterintelligence organization, it gained considerable control over the movements of the Israeli regime and its spies. It was this power and influence of Yahya al-Sinwar that led the Israelis to arrest him very quickly, which led him to spend 23 years of his life in Israeli prisons. It is worth mentioning that he was released unconditionally under the Gilad Shalit contract in 2011 with sentences of more than 430 years in prison.

Michael Koubi, the officer who oversaw al-Sinwar’s interrogation for the Shin Bet in 1989, described him as a man of command and charisma who spoke little and was quick to get angry. He was described as “a leader in and out of prison and a man of discipline.”

Israeli reports confirm that al-Sinwar was fluent in Hebrew, and this ability helped him track and analyze what was happening inside Israel. In fact, he was able to keep a close eye on Israeli society and read newspapers in addition to biographies of Israeli leaders.

After his release, al-Sinwar also succeeded in inflicting the largest military damage on the Israeli regime in the history of its occupation, and it is said that he has survived six failed assassinations in recent years.

A few months ago, the Hebrew-language media quoted a number of released Israeli prisoners as saying: In the first days of captivity, Yahya al-Sinwar, the head of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza, appeared among the Israeli prisoners and addressed them in Hebrew without an accent: ‘Hello, I am Yahya al-Sinwar, you have the most protection here and nothing will happen to you!’