Hamas’s new political leader Yahya Sinwar appears to be more extreme

Hamas on Tuesday appointed Yahya Sinwar as the leader of its political wing following the assassination of its former political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

This makes Sinwar – a man known for his ruthlessness who is widely seen as having masterminded the October 7 attack – the most powerful person in the organization and the face of international diplomacy.

“The most extreme part of Hamas took place on October 7 … and now it is officially in power,” Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical analyst and head of intel at the risk management company Le Beck International, wrote in a post on X.

The Middle East is on edge after the killing of Haniyeh in Iran on July 31, which Iran and Hamas blamed on Israel. Israel has been silent on this matter, while Iran has promised to carry out some form of retaliatory attack on the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Haniyeh’s killing has led to more extreme leadership for Hamas, possibly setting the Palestinian militant group in a bad direction for ceasefire talks aimed at ending the war and freeing Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza.

Haniyeh, based in Qatar, was Hamas’s main negotiator in the ceasefire talks with Israel and was described as more pragmatic and supportive of the deal. While talks have been going on for months without success, Sinwar – who is based in Gaza and is said to have the final say on major Hamas decisions – has often stopped or cut off communications during talks.

“Sinwar’s nomination for the top job of Hamas – although he is based in Gaza – prefaces a significant hardening of the movement’s stance, especially regarding the ceasefire,” Victor Tricaud, senior analyst at Consulting firm Control Risks, told CNBC.

The Palestinian leader “has spoken very prominently in the negotiations with Israel, but the difference now is that there will not be a relatively pragmatic voice of Ismail Haniyeh to balance Sinwar’s uncompromising maximalist views.”

However, his nomination cannot change the dynamics of the ground war in Gaza, as killing him remains a top priority for Israel, Tricaud said. But it does not deal a blow to efforts to achieve a permanent stop in the fighting and regional de-escalation; Analysts expect “higher stability in the region to continue for several months.”

Sinwar, 61, was born in a refugee camp in Gaza and spent at least 22 years of his adulthood in Israeli prisons. He had been sentenced to life in prison in 1989 for targeting the murders of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he believed to be collaborators, having made a name for himself as “Butcher Khan Yunis” for hunting down suspected Palestinians. work with Israel.

He was released early, however, in a highly controversial prisoner exchange in 2011 that saw more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been kidnapped by Hamas five years earlier.

Sinwar later said in an interview that he used his time in prison to learn to speak, read and write in Hebrew and to understand the psychology and behavior of the Israeli captors. In 2015 he was designated as a terrorist by the US government, and in 2017 he was elected as the leader of Hamas.

The International Criminal Court in May said it filed an arrest warrant application for Sinwar and Haniyeh for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It jointly filed an arrest warrant application for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Sinwar’s elevation to the top position in Hamas and his subsequent joining of its political and military wings also complicates potential plans for the “day after” in Gaza, for which the Israeli government has yet to provide a plan.

Such an election would “damage (Hamas’s) legitimacy on the international stage,” said Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and regional analyst, in an emailed note.

“In many ways, the separation of the military and political branches allows space for Hamas to try to negotiate a better hostage settlement for itself with Israel and to secure its future after the current war in the future Palestinian government,” he said. “This move will challenge that tactic.”

A key target of the Israeli military, Sinwar has survived assassination attempts over the years and is believed to have spent much of the current war hiding in Gaza’s elaborate network of tunnels.

This makes Hamas’s decision to appoint Sinwar as head risky, said Ghanem Nuseibeh, who described the group as “obviously taking a gamble with an invisible leader.”

“But it’s even worse for Israel and the mediators,” Nuseibeh, head of the London-based Muslim Against Antisemitism and regional commentator, said. “Good luck negotiating with the most extreme part of Hamas that is also invisible.”