A senior Hamas official told Newsweek that the Palestinian militant group was well-equipped to fill the spot of its slain leader and that such killings have traditionally only made the group stronger.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced last week that Hamas Political Bureau chief Yahya Sinwar, also known as Abu Ibrahim, was killed during an operation near the southern city of Rafah. Sinwar is widely seen as one of the prime architects of the October 7, 2023, attack that sparked what has emerged as the longest and deadliest war in the Gaza Strip.
His killing follows a consecutive series of top-ranking losses for Hamas, including Sinwar’s predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh. As Hamas deliberates on the future of its leadership, Hamas Political Bureau member and spokesperson Bassem Naim asserted that its strategy remained uninterrupted.
“Certainly, the loss of a great leader of the stature of the martyred brother leader Yahya Sinwar, Abu Ibrahim, is a great loss for us in the Hamas movement, for our Palestinian people, and even for the Arab nation and the free people of the world,” Naim told Newsweek.
“But certainly, the Hamas movement is a large movement, a resistance movement for liberation and return,” Naim said, “and its strategy is not based on the presence of a person or his absence, but rather it is a collective strategy adopted by millions of the sons of the Palestinian people for liberation and return.”
“Therefore,” he said, “despite the great loss and great pain, Hamas continues in its strategy of struggle for liberation, independence and return.”
Supporters of Yemen’s Ansar Allah brandish rifles and photos of Hamas’ late Political Bureau chief Yahya Sinwar, during an October 18 protest in Sanaa. Sinwar was killed by the IDF in Gaza.
Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images
While the IDF has claimed the killing of more than 17,000 Hamas fighters throughout the conflict, Naim argued that the group retained a significant support base in both Gaza, the West Bank as well as beyond the Palestinian territories and was “full of leaders and cadres capable of continuing this path.”
He highlighted the past slayings of founding Hamas officials, such as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdul Aziz-Rantisi, who were killed by Israeli helicopter fire in March and April 2004, respectively, as well as Salah Shehadeh, killed by an Israeli F-16 strike in July 2002.
Shehadeh’s death paved the way for Mohammed Deif to take the helm of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, through which he led violent campaigns against Israel and is believed to have played a key role in the attacks last October, as well. The IDF claimed it killed Deif in July and his deputy, Marwan Issa, in March, though Hamas has not confirmed their deaths.
In each instance of leaders being killed, Naim said, “The movement did not stop working in this direction, but rather after each martyrdom, the movement becomes stronger and more widespread.”
“Now this matter is being discussed in the movement’s Shura Council,” he said, “in order to agree on the leadership form in which the movement will continue from now on.”
Among the most prominent Hamas officials who have thus far survived the conflict include Sinwar’s deputy, Khalil al-Haya, former Hamas Political Bureau chief Khaled Meshaal, Hamas Shura Council head Mohammed Darwish, Hamas West Bank leader Zaher Jabarin and former deputy Hamas Political Bureau director Mousa Abu Marzouk. All are based in the Qatari capital of Doha, where Haniyeh, too, resided until his death during a trip to Iran in July.
Newsweek has reached out to the IDF for comment.
Shortly after the IDF announced Sinwar’s death, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared “the beginning of the end” of the yearlong war in Gaza.
He pointed the Hamas chief’s killing, along with the killings of Haniyeh, Deif, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and the group’s top commander Fouad Shukr, as evidence that “the axis of terror that was built by Iran is collapsing before our eyes.”
Netanyahu has vowed to fight until Hamas was eliminated as a military and political entity, Gaza could no longer pose a threat to Israel in the future, and all hostages were returned.
Israeli officials estimate that more than 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack last October and that around 250 were taken hostage, around 100 of whom remain in the group’s captivity.
Nearly 42,800 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The IDF has reported the deaths of more than 350 Israeli soldiers since launching a ground offensive into Gaza.
The war has also increasingly expanded to Lebanon, where the Lebanese Hezbollah movement has fired rockets, missiles and drones against Israel in solidarity with Hamas, and the IDF has conducted strikes across the country. Netanyahu has declared the goal on the northern front to be the return of tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes by fighting.
Shortly after killing Nasrallah in an airstrike in Beirut last month, the IDF launched a ground incursion into southern Lebanon and has faced intensive clashes with Hezbollah fighters and continued cross-border attacks, including a drone strike that targeted a residence of Netanyahu over the weekend.
The Lebanese Health Ministry estimated that around 2,500 people have been killed due to Israeli attacks in the country over the past year. The IDF has claimed that it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members throughout the conflict.
The Israeli military confirmed on Tuesday the killing of another top Hezbollah official, Executive Council head Hashem Safieddine, in an airstrike conducted in Beirut late last month. He was seen by many to be a potential successor to Nasrallah, who has led the group since his own predecessor was killed by Israel in 1992, and Safieddine’s demise marked yet another successive blow to the vanguard of the Iran-aligned Axis of Resistance coalition that also counts factions in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Hezbollah confirmed Safieddine’s death in a statement shared with Newsweek on Wednesday.
“We pledge to our great martyr and his martyred brothers to continue the path of resistance and jihad until achieving its goals of freedom and victory,” the statement said.
As is the case with Hamas, Hezbollah has yet to announce a new top leader in the wake of the most recent wave of assassinations. Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem has largely assumed the public duties of Nasrallah in the wake of his death.
A spokesperson for the group said in a statement shared with Newsweek earlier this month that “Hezbollah has enough equipment and numbers to repel the aggression.”
