Today, Tuesday, Hamas announced the appointment of its leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, as its president following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh and one of his personal guards were killed after an attack on his residence in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Who is Yehya Sinwar?
Yehya Ibrahim Sinwar, who turned 61 on October 29, was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962. Out of his 61 years, Sinwar spent 24 years in Israeli prisons, the majority of his youth. He originally hails from a family that lived in the city of Majdal Ashkelon before the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. Sinwar grew up in the Khan Younis camp, which also came under Israeli occupation in 1967. He received his education in the camp’s schools until he completed his high school studies and then attended the Islamic University in Gaza, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Arabic.
In 1982, Sinwar was arrested and placed under administrative detention for four months on charges of engaging in "subversive activities." In 1988, an Israeli court sentenced him to life imprisonment four times (a total of 426 years), of which he spent 24 years in prison.
### The Most Influential Figure
According to the British magazine The Economist, Sinwar is described as the most influential person in the Palestinian territories. He is one of the early members of Hamas and contributed to the formation of its security apparatus, known as "Mujad." A turning point in Sinwar's path occurred when Israel negotiated a prisoner exchange deal involving Palestinian detainees in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in 2011. At that time, Israel used Sinwar as a negotiator, allowing him to speak to Hamas leaders who sought the release of over 1,000 Palestinian detainees in return for Shalit. Israel objected to several names proposed by Hamas, but Sinwar was not among those contested. Indeed, in 2011, Sinwar was released and became a leader in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
Sinwar benefited from his knowledge of Israeli prisons, gained during his long years within their confines, which granted him influence among Hamas's military leaders. Politically, within Hamas, he was elected in 2017 as the head of the movement's political bureau in the Gaza Strip. In the same year, he played a key diplomatic role in attempting to mend relations between the Palestinian Authority, led by the Fatah movement in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza, although this effort did not succeed. Sinwar also worked on reevaluating Hamas's foreign relations, including improving ties with Egypt.
In September 2015, the U.S. State Department placed Yehya Sinwar on its blacklist of "international terrorists."
