The assassination of Sinwar places Hamas at a crossroads at various organizational, political and military levels, especially in the context of the course of the war in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and the movement’s role on the day after the war, which may affect its alliances and relations internally and externally.
The assassination of Hamas’s political bureau chief, Yahya Sinwar, on October 16, 2024, is a pivotal event in the context of the war in the Gaza Strip since its outbreak on October 7, 2023, and a pivotal stage in the movement’s history, in light of military and political pressures not witnessed since its founding in 1987. On the one hand, Sinwar is considered the main planner of the October attacks, and enjoys broad political and military influence within the movement. On the other hand, his assassination comes in light of the movement and its military wing losing a number of its political and military leaders. This places the movement at a crossroads at various organizational, political and military levels, especially in the context of the course of the war in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and its role on the day after the war, and may affect the movement’s alliances and relations internally and externally.
A history of pivotal moments in the movement
The assassination of Sinwar is one of the many chapters that the movement has faced since its founding, and in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is not the first time that the movement’s leader has been killed, and it may not be the last, given its history, which has witnessed similar moments. Two years after its founding in 1987, Israel arrested most of the movement’s leaders and founders in 1989, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, which led to a leadership vacuum in the organization’s structural framework, following the movement’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip.
In the 1990s, the movement faced Israeli campaigns to deport and assassinate its most important leaders. In 1992, Israel deported more than 400 of the movement’s leaders and cadres to southern Lebanon for a full year after the movement killed an Israeli soldier and kidnapped another. In 1993, Israel assassinated a group of the movement’s military leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including one of the founders of the Qassam Brigades, Imad Aqel. This was followed by the assassination of Yahya Ayyash, known as “the Engineer,” in 1996, and then the assassination of Muhyiddin al-Sharif, along with the movement’s leader Adel Awadallah, in 1998.
During the second intifada in 2000 and beyond, the movement faced the largest series of assassinations of its leaders. Israel assassinated Jamal Mansour, one of the movement’s founding leaders in the West Bank in 2001. In the same year, it assassinated leaders Jamal Salim and Mahmoud Abu Hanoud. In the period (2002-2004), Israel dealt severe blows to the movement’s first-tier leaders in the Gaza Strip, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, Ibrahim al-Maqadma, the founder of the Qassam Brigades, Salah Shehadeh, and the chief engineer of the Qassam Brigades, Adnan al-Ghoul. In addition to a number of other leaders of the movement who were killed inside and outside the country during the following years, including the Minister of Interior in the first Hamas government, Saeed Siam, in 2009, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Qassam Brigades, Ahmed al-Jaabari, in Gaza in 2012, Muhammad al-Zawari, who was assassinated in Tunisia in 2016, and Mazen Fuqaha, one of the leaders of the Qassam Brigades in the West Bank in 2017.
After the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, the movement entered a new and accelerating series of attrition of its political and military leaders, since the assassination of the deputy head of the political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri , in early January 2024 in Beirut, then the assassination of the head of the political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in late July, and the Israeli announcement of its assassination of the movement’s military commander, Muhammad al-Deif, in early August, in addition to a number of leaders of field units and brigades in the Gaza Strip, most notably the deputy commander-in-chief of the Qassam Brigades, Marwan Issa, in March 2024.
The exceptional assassination of Sinwar
Unlike the movement’s previous history of losing a number of its most important leaders, the assassination of Sinwar in particular is exceptional given his role within the movement, his association with the October attacks, and the threats surrounding the movement nearly a year after those attacks.
On the one hand, Sinwar is considered one of the founders of the first security and military cells of the Islamic movement in the eighties until before the official announcement of the establishment of the Hamas movement. He enjoys influence and centrality over the political and military apparatuses, and there is consensus regarding him among most of the movement’s currents, especially the Gaza, prisons, and West Bank currents. He played a role in the rapprochement between the movement and the axis supported by Iran. His assumption of the presidency of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh , is an embodiment of that central role within the movement.
On the other hand, the circumstances and timing in which he was killed are exceptional, as the war enters its second year, amidst unprecedented humanitarian conditions, and in light of several obstacles facing reaching an agreement to end the war, and the complexities and entanglements surrounding the essential issues of the day after the war, foremost of which are reconstruction and arrangements for governance and administration of the sector after Hamas, in addition to the “pivotal moment” witnessed by the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance,” especially after the series of strikes launched by Israel against the Lebanese Hezbollah, during which it killed its leadership structure and its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on September 27, 2024 , and his expected successor, Safi al-Din Hashem, whose death was announced by the party on October 23, 2024, and with Israel starting a ground military operation in Lebanon, in which it increases the pressures imposed on the party and the axis in general.
Thus, it is likely that the assassination of Sinwar will have several complex repercussions that may affect the organizational structure of the Hamas movement and the centrality of decision-making within it, and its effects may extend to its political discourse and network of alliances, especially since the movement is in the midst of a leadership vacuum and the balance between its four currents (the Gaza Strip, the prisons, the West Bank, and abroad) has been affected, for which Sinwar was an equalizing factor. This places the movement at a “crossroads” whose future choices may determine the general strategic direction of the movement and its future.
Hamas at a “crossroads”
Sinwar’s assassination complicates calculations within Hamas, most notably the organizational calculations of the movement’s leadership and its ability to choose a figure who enjoys the same status, or who is accepted by all factions of the movement, especially since the candidates to succeed him differ in their orientations and positions on the war and ceasefire negotiations, as well as in their network of allies. While Sinwar’s succession options are almost limited to two options, the implementation of either of them places the movement at a “crossroads”, due to the future implications of each option on the movement’s structure, positions, and orientations.
On the one hand, the movement may move towards the election of one of its leaders as head of the political bureau to succeed Sinwar, and the options are almost limited to candidates from the current close to the “resistance axis”; most notably Khalil al-Hayya, and another current close to the Muslim Brotherhood reference; most notably Khaled Meshaal and Mohammed Darwish, head of the movement’s Shura Council. The election of a figure from one of the two currents as head of the political bureau sheds light on how the movement may be affected by the orientations of its leader. For example, Khalil al-Hayya is one of the leaders of the Gaza region residing abroad, and was Sinwar’s deputy due to the intersection of their positions, especially regarding the war and the relationship with the “resistance axis” led by Iran, which is responsible for the negotiations file. His election means that the movement will continue with its current approach without any significant change in its positions and orientations. Meanwhile, the election of Khaled Meshaal or Mohammed Darwish, who reside in Qatar, represents a shift in the center of gravity within the movement from the Gaza Strip to Qatar and Turkey, and Hamas’s political discourse may witness a change in directions closer to readiness for a political settlement, and further from the discourse of the Iranian axis calling for military escalation.
In all cases, the next leader of the movement may not be able to follow the strategy of “delicate balances” that Ismail Haniyeh established, and may not enjoy the same influence that Sinwar enjoyed over the political and military apparatuses, which means that Hamas’s options after Sinwar may widen the gaps between the movement’s currents, and it is possible that the differences between its currents will surface, especially since the movement is facing an exceptional stage in its life. The first current believes that by continuing the war, the movement can be preserved, while the second sees political solutions and integration with the Palestinian political system as an existential option, and seeks ways to rehabilitate the movement in the international community according to the principle of its transformation into a political movement.
Accordingly, the ability of the movement’s next political bureau chief to reflect his orientations and positions may be very limited. The current close to Iran will face the positions of the Muslim Brotherhood and its approaches to the post-war period, especially after the blows the movement suffered and its loss of control over its center in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Khaled Meshaal’s current will face pressure from the military apparatus, especially from the remaining extremist figures or those with military influence in Gaza, such as Mahmoud al-Zahar, Mohammed Sinwar, and Rawhi Mushtaha, which may weaken the powers of the political leadership and put it before a fateful choice at the organizational level.
The other option before the movement is to form a collective leadership body, or it may have formed it originally according to what was stated in many open sources without an official announcement or confirmation from the movement so far. This is a step that comes to overcome any differences or disagreements between the movement’s members and currents, and also avoids the possibility of assassinating its new leader and returning once again to the dilemma of the leadership vacuum, while at the same time ensuring the representation of the movement’s various currents within it, and preserving the strategy of “delicate balances.” It may include Khalil al-Hayya, Musa Abu Marzouk, Khaled Meshaal, and Muhammad Darwish.
However, returning to the “exceptional phase”, the formation of a leadership body places the movement’s organizational structure before multiple entitlements and several questions, including those related to the methods of selecting members and accepting their resignations, voting and decision-making mechanisms, the percentages of representation of the various movements, the extent of the commitment of members outside it to its decisions, especially the military apparatus, and whether the body will choose a president and spokesperson for it, which returns it to the first option of electing a president for the movement, as in both cases the procedures face a set of complications.
Moreover, Hamas’s ability to sustain stability within the leadership body is a challenge in itself, as it will not only be subject to polarization among its members, but also to regional pressures from various influential actors, whether from Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Iran, or various parties of the “Axis of Resistance.” These pressures may be exerted on core issues such as ceasefire negotiations, and on less important issues such as the movement’s statements and so on.
Finally , the movement is going through a highly sensitive period, especially after losing three of its most prominent leaders, since the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, through the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and up to the assassination of Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip. It is expected that the movement will witness a shift in its decision-making center from the Gaza Strip to abroad, and the different currents may gain their status according to the course of the war. The more pressures on the movement and its military wing increase, the movement’s centrality may shift toward the current close to the Muslim Brotherhood, to become responsible for the currents in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, especially abroad. The circumstances it is witnessing are very similar to the blow it received in 1989, which forced Hamas to move its leadership center abroad and form the first political bureau headed by Musa Abu Marzouk in 1990.