The Hamas leadership unanimously elected Yahya Sinwar as the head of the group's political bureau, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed last week in Tehran. This was reported by the BBC with reference to a Hamas representative, UNN reports .
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For two days in Doha, intensive meetings with leading Hamas figures discussed options for the group's next leader.
Many scenarios were discussed, but in the end only two names were put forward: Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Hassan Darwish, the shadowy figure who heads the General Shura Council, the body that elects Hamas's politburo.
The council voted unanimously in favor of Sinwar's selection, which one Hamas representative called "a message of defiance to Israel.
"They killed Haniya, a flexible person who was open to solutions. Now they will have to deal with Sinwar and the military leadership," the official said.
Yahya Sinwar, on the other hand, is considered one of the most extremist figures in Hamas.
Sinwar is currently at the top of Israel's most wanted list. Israeli security services believe that he led the planning and execution of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in Gaza.
"The appointment of the sworn terrorist Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is yet another strong reason for his swift removal and the wiping out of this vile organization from the face of the Earth," Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz said in a statement on the X website.
Yahya Sinwar is a terrorist responsible for the most brutal terrorist attack in history," Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in an interview with the Saudi news channel Al Arabiya.
Sinwar has not appeared in public since the attacks in October and is believed to be hiding "10 floors underground" in Gaza, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in June.
It is noted that since 2017, Sinwar has been the leader of the group in the Gaza Strip.
In the late 1980s, he founded the Hamas security service known as Majd. He spent most of his life in Israeli prisons. The United States put Sinwar on its blacklist of "international terrorists.
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