In a formal announcement made Monday, the Palestinian militant and political group Hamas has named veteran senior leader Khalil al-Hayya as its new chief, filling a leadership vacancy created by the battlefield death of former leader Yahya Sinwar at the hands of Israeli forces in October 2024.
Sinwar, who took over the role following the assassination of former Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran just three months earlier in July 2024, was killed during direct combat engagements with the Israeli military in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, on October 17, 2024. In the immediate aftermath of Sinwar’s killing, Hamas initially opted against naming a permanent successor, instead establishing an interim five-person leadership council headed by Muhammad Ismail Darwish, chair of the group’s top advisory Shura Council.
Hayya, a long-time senior Hamas leader based outside of Palestinian territories, has emerged as one of the group’s central figures in diplomatic and ceasefire negotiations with Israeli mediators over the past three years. The 64-year-old leader, who was born in Gaza in 1960, is one of Hamas’ earliest founding political members. He first connected with Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1980, seven years before the group was formally established, and went on to hold leadership posts in Palestinian student and labor organizations before winning a seat on the Palestinian Legislative Council in the 2006 legislative elections.
Hayya has survived multiple Israeli assassination attempts spanning more than 15 years. A 2007 targeting attempt gone wrong killed multiple members of his immediate family, including his wife and three of his children. Most recently, in September 2023, an Israeli strike targeting Hayya and other senior Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, claimed the life of his son Hammam al-Hayya and his office director Jihad Lubbad, while leaving Hayya and other senior figures including former Hamas leader Khaled Meshal unharmed, according to multiple sources close to Hamas who spoke to Middle East Eye in the wake of the attack.
Throughout his decades-long tenure with Hamas, Hayya has built a track record as a key negotiator, leading ceasefire talks with Israel during the 2014 Israeli military campaign in Gaza and continuing in that role through the ongoing conflict that erupted in October 2023. In 2022, he also played a pivotal role in mending fractured ties between Hamas and the Syrian government, traveling to Damascus to formally reestablish relations that broke down in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings and the subsequent Syrian civil war.