What’s next for Hamas after its leader Yahya Sinwar’s death?

People stand in front of the billboard showing late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, rally to show support to Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen October 18, 2024. (REUTERS)
People stand in front of the billboard showing late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, rally to show support to Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen October 18, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 19 October 2024
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What’s next for Hamas after its leader Yahya Sinwar’s death?

What’s next for Hamas after its leader Yahya Sinwar’s death?
  • If Hamas names a replacement for Sinwar, Khaled Mashaal and Khalil Al-Hayya, both members of Hamas’ political leadership based in Qatar, are widely considered the most likely contenders

BEIRUT: The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli forces in Gaza this week leaves the Palestinian militant group considering new leadership for the second time in less than three months.
Will Hamas now turn away from its hard-line wing or will it double down, and what will it mean for the group’s future and for the revival of ceasefire and hostage exchange negotiations between Hamas and Israel?
Sinwar replaced Hamas’ previous leader, Ismail Haniyeh, after Haniyeh was killed in July in a blast in Iran that was widely blamed on Israel.
As an architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, Sinwar was a defiant choice at a time when some expected the militant group to take a more conciliatory approach and seek to end the conflict.
Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday.
Sinwar’s death has little immediate impact on Hamas
Killing Sinwar marked a major symbolic victory for Israel in its yearlong war against Hamas in Gaza. But it has also allowed Hamas to claim him as a hero who was killed in the battlefield, not hiding in a tunnel.
While the group is on the defensive and has been largely forced underground in Gaza, it continues to fight Israeli forces in the enclave and to exert political influence.
Bassem Naim, a Qatar-based member of the group’s political bureau, said in a statement that Israel had killed other Hamas leaders, including its founding leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who were killed by airstrikes in 2004.
“Hamas each time became stronger and more popular, and these leaders became an icon for future generations,” he said.
The impact of Sinwar’s death on military operations in Gaza remains to be seen. But Sadeq Abu Amer, head of the Turkiye-based think tank Palestinian Dialogue Group, said that “there will be no significant impact on the political structure of Hamas.”
When Sinwar was appointed, “the situation was basically arranged so that Hamas could manage its political affairs and manage the organization independently of Sinwar” because of the difficulties of communication between Sinwar and Hamas’ political leaders outside of Gaza, he said.
Most matters were managed by “collective leadership” between the head of the group’s Shoura Council and officials in charge of the West Bank, Gaza and regions abroad, he said. The notable exception: Sinwar controlled all matters related to Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The search for a replacement
Sinwar’s term was a temporary one and would have expired in the second half of 2025.
“Hamas will not move urgently at the present time to choose a head of the political bureau,” Thabet Al-Amour, a political analyst in Gaza, said. He noted that Khalil Al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy based in Qatar, was already managing executive affairs and can continue to do so.
Abu Amer agreed that Hamas might opt to keep running with the current “formula of collective leadership.” Another possibility, he said would be the election of one of the three regional leaders: Al-Hayya, who is in charge of Gaza; Zaher Jibril, in charge of the West Bank; or Khaled Mashaal, in charge of areas outside of the Palestinian territories.
The group also might select a leader without publicly announcing the name “for security reasons,” he said.
Who are the contenders?
If Hamas names a replacement for Sinwar, Khaled Mashaal and Khalil Al-Hayya, both members of Hamas’ political leadership based in Qatar, are widely considered the most likely contenders.
Al-Hayya had served as Sinwar’s deputy and as the head of the group’s delegation in ceasefire negotiations, both in the current war and during a previous conflict in 2014. He is a longtime official with the group and survived an Israeli airstrike that hit his home in Gaza in 2007, killing several of his family members.
Al-Hayya is seen as close to Iran, but as less of a hard-liner than Sinwar. He was close to Haniyeh.
In an interview with The Associated Press in April, Al-Hayya said Hamas was willing to agree to truce of at least five years with Israel and that if an independent Palestinian state were created along 1967 borders, the group would dissolve its military wing and become a purely political party.
Mashaal, who served as the group’s political leader from 1996 to 2017, is seen as a relatively moderate figure. He has good relations with Turkiye and Qatar, although his relations with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah have been troubled due to his support for the Syrian opposition in the country’s 2011 civil war.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a founding member of Hamas and the first head of its political bureau, is another potential candidate who is seen as a moderate.
Some have suggested that Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, a key military figure in Gaza, could replace him — if he is still alive. Al-Amour downplayed that possibility.
“Mohammed Sinwar is the head of the field battle, but he will not be Sinwar’s heir as head of the political bureau,” he said. Rather, Al-Amour said the death of Sinwar, “one of the most prominent hawks within the movement,” is likely to lead to “the advancement of a trend or direction that can be described as doves” via the group’s leadership abroad.
Ceasefire negotiations
In the first public statement by a Hamas official after Sinwar’s death, Al-Hayya appeared to take a hard line on negotiations for a ceasefire deal that would see the release of some 100 Israeli hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war and who are believed to be held in Gaza.
There will be no hostage release without “the end of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from Gaza,” Al-Hayya said.
But some believe that the group may now moderate its stance.
In particular, Mashaal “shows more flexibility when it comes to collaborating with the Qataris and Egyptians to reach ceasefire in Gaza, which would also have a positive impact on the situation in Lebanon,” Saad Abdullah Al-Hamid, a Saudi political analyst, said.
But Sinwar’s death could leave some “practical difficulties in completing a prisoner exchange,” Abu Amer said.
The Gaza-based leader was “the only one in the Hamas leadership who held the secrets of this file,” he said, including the location of all the hostages.
 

 


Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed

Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed
Updated 6 sec ago
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Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed

Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed
TADAMON: Security forces in Syria said on Monday that they arrested three people involved in the execution of hundreds of civilians by government forces in Damascus in 2013, two years after the country’s 13-year civil war began.
Dozens of police and security trucks lined the streets of Tadamon, a Damascus suburb near the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, where they carried out the arrests in the same streets that once bore witness to mass executions. Masked, rifle-wielding men moved through hollowed-out buildings, remnants of a war that turned the district into a front line between government forces and opposition fighters.
In 2022, a leaked video dated April 16, 2013, appeared to contain harrowing footage of the executions. The near seven-minute clip showed members of Syria’s notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227 leading a line of about 40 blindfolded prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs, into an abandoned building in Tadamon. One by one, the gunmen pushed or kicked the prisoners into a trench filled with old tires, shooting them as they fell.
One of the three men arrested was Monzer Al-Jazairi, a resident of the Zahira neighborhood and a former operative with the military security that operated before the fall of President Bashar Assad in December.
Flanked by security men, Al-Jazairi recounted how his forces would bring detainees arrested at checkpoints in groups to the buildings, shoot and kill them and then blow up the buildings. He added that he estimates he and his colleagues killed about 500.
It was unclear whether Al-Jazairi spoke under duress or voluntarily.
Damascus Security Chief Lt. Col. Abdul Rahman Al-Dabbagh corroborated the number, citing additional confessions from those arrested.
“Many of those killed used to be collected at checkpoints and security (detention) centers, brought to Tadamon neighborhood, where they were executed,” Al-Dabbagh told the AP.
The two other arrested suspects were identified as Somer Mohammed Al-Mahmoud and Imad Mohammed Al-Mahmoud.
Years after the Syrian war’s worst massacres and mass disappearances, most alleged crimes have not been investigated and remain unpunished.
Since Assad's ouster, Syrian security forces, under the new leadership led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, once affiliated with al-Qaida, have been tracking down and arresting remnants of the former government and military across the country.
“The operation is ongoing to apprehend all those involved in violations and massacres against Syrians,” Al-Dabbagh said.

Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants

Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants
Updated 4 min 13 sec ago
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Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants

Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants
  • The raids came as Turkiye continues to remove elected pro-Kurdish mayors from their posts over militant ties

ISTANBUL: Turkish police detained 282 suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, militant group in raids over the last five days, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday.
The raids came as Turkiye continues to remove elected pro-Kurdish mayors from their posts over militant ties in a crackdown coinciding with hopes for an end to a 40-year conflict between the PKK and authorities.
Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is expected to make a statement on such efforts, four months after an ally of President Tayyip Erdogan urged him to call on the militants to lay down their arms.
Police carried out this week’s counter-terror raids in 51 provinces, as well as in the capital, Ankara, and the largest city of Istanbul, the minister said on X.
The suspects were accused of conducting PKK propaganda, providing financing for the group, recruiting members and joining in street protests, he said. The police seized two AK 47 rifles among other weapons.
On Saturday, Turkiye removed a pro-Kurdish DEM Party mayor from his post in the eastern province of Van over terrorism-related convictions, taking to eight the number of DEM mayors replaced by state-appointed officials since 2024 elections.
The PKK, designated as a terrorist group by Turkiye and its Western allies, launched its insurgency against the state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.


Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal

Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal
Updated 22 min 9 sec ago
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Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal

Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal
  • The war has left more than 4,000 people dead and over 16,000 wounded in Lebanon and caused damage worth billions of dollars

KHIAM: Sabah Abdullah comes to her hometown in Lebanon every morning and sits next to her destroyed home. She is waiting for experts from Hezbollah’s construction arm to compensate her for the damage caused by the Israel-Hezbollah war that has left her homeless.
The 66-year-old from Khiam now rents a home in the nearby village of Kawkaba and is repairing her small grocery store, which was badly damaged by the 13-month war that ended in late November as a result of a US-brokered ceasefire. The war has left more than 4,000 people dead and over 16,000 wounded in Lebanon and caused damage worth billions of dollars.
“Damage can be compensated but the loss of souls cannot be replaced,” said Abdullah as she sat on a plastic chair in the sun outside her shop.
Israeli forces will remain in parts of southern Lebanon
The 60-day ceasefire that was supposed to end on Jan. 27 — with an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and the militant Hezbollah group ending its armed presence along the border area — was extended until Tuesday. But an Israeli official said on Monday that Israeli forces will remain in five strategic locations in southern Lebanon after the deadline.
One of these locations is the Hamamis hill on the southern outskirts of Khiam. On Monday, bulldozers could be seen from a distance at work building what appeared to be fortifications in an apparent sign that Israel’s military is planning to stay long beyond Tuesday’s deadline.
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a speech on Sunday that Israel must withdraw fully from Lebanon on Tuesday, adding that “there is no pretext for five points nor other details.” He said the Lebanese state should prevent Israel from staying in the country after Tuesday as stated in the ceasefire deal.
The Israel-Hezbollah war began a day after Hamas carried out its deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 people hostage and triggering the Israel-Hamas war. The Israel-Hezbollah war intensified as of Sept. 23, when Israel expanded its attacks and killed Hezbollah’s longtime top leader and one of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah.
Widespread damage in Khiam
Khiam, one of the largest towns close to the Israeli border, suffered widespread damage, including entire blocks that were turned to piles of debris. Graffiti left behind by Israeli troops could be seen on the walls as well as inside homes. The town’s cemetery suffered severe damage, with many graves blown out.
On Monday, workers were removing debris in different locations in Khiam as many residents come during the day to spend a few hours at their homes and leave before sunset since the town still has no electricity or running water. New poles were being put in place by the country’s state-run electricity company as the infrastructure suffered severe damage.
“In Khiam everyone was martyred,” read a graffiti on a wall in Arabic. “Khiam is Golani’s graveyard,” another one read, referring to Israel’s Golani Brigade.
In a building on the eastern edge of Khiam, a woman showed a journalist a Star of David sprayed in red at the entrance of her apartment. The woman, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, then walked through her apartment, showing a reporter the damage in the sitting room and kitchen.
Abdallah said when she first came to Khiam days after the ceasefire went into effect in late November, she found that hungry cats and dogs inside her badly damaged shop had eaten cakes, croissants and chocolates. The metal door of her shop was blown wide open, she said.
Seeing her home, built by her late father, destroyed saddened her but Abdallah said she is happy that none of her siblings or relatives were hurt during the war.
‘The future is obscure’
Abdallah said that soon after the war ended, Hezbollah’s construction arm Jihad Al-Binaa paid her $12,000, of which $8,000 were to compensate her for lost furniture and $4,000 for a year’s rent.
Abdallah said that since the Israel-Hezbollah war began, she rented a house in Marakaba and had spent most of her savings and was selling some of her jewelry. She said she is now waiting for government experts to visit her and estimate the losses to pay her for rebuilding her two-story house that she shared with her brother.
“I will rebuild my house but the future is obscure. We live close to the border,” Abdallah said, referring to repeated wars with Israel over the past decades.
Another Khiam resident, Dalal Abdallah, said if Israel decides to stay in Lebanon, Israel will be eventually forced to leave again.
“Valuable blood and souls were paid for this land,” she said. “No one should think that we will leave our land.”


Deadline for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon expires

Deadline for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon expires
Updated 18 February 2025
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Deadline for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon expires

Deadline for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon expires
  • Israeli troops had started withdrawing Monday from some border villages, but they seemed poised to stay in key areas
  • Israel’s military said Monday it would remain temporarily ‘in five strategic points’ dotted along the length of the shared border

BEIRUT: A deadline expired Tuesday for all Israeli troops to leave south Lebanon under a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, hours after Israel said it planned to remain in five strategic locations.
Israeli troops had started withdrawing Monday from some border villages, according to a Lebanese security official, but they seemed poised to stay in key areas.
“Israeli forces are beginning to withdraw from border villages, including Mais Al-Jabal and Blida, as the Lebanese army advances,” the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Hezbollah strongholds in south and east Lebanon and south Beirut saw heavy destruction during two months of all-out war and a year of cross-border hostilities initiated by Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Authorities estimate reconstruction costs could reach more than $10 billion, while more than 100,000 remain internally displaced according to United Nations figures.
Despite the devastation, thousands have been waiting eagerly since the November 27 ceasefire to return home, inspect their properties and in some cases search for the dead under the rubble.
“I miss sitting in front of my house, near my roses and having a morning cup of coffee,” said Fatima Shukeir, in her sixties, who plans to return to her border village after more than a year and a half of displacement.
“I miss everything in Mais Al-Jabal, I miss my neighbors. We were separated and I don’t know where they went,” Shukeir said.
Several border towns and villages, including Mais Al-Jabal’s municipality, have called on displaced residents to wait for the Lebanese army to deploy there before coming back, so as to guarantee their “safe” return.
Lebanese television channel LBCI reported Tuesday that the country’s army had moved overnight into Mais Al-Jabal, Blida, Yaroun, Maroun and Mahbib.
Under the ceasefire, brokered by Washington and Paris, Lebanon’s military was to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure there.
Hours before the deadline, Israel’s military said Monday it would remain temporarily “in five strategic points” dotted along the length of the shared border in order to “continue to defend our residents and to make sure there’s no immediate threat.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would do what it has to in order to “enforce” the ceasefire.
“Hezbollah must be disarmed,” he added.
Lebanese authorities have rejected any extension of the withdrawal period, urging sponsors of the deal to pressure Israel to pull out.
Israeli troops are still present in a handful of villages and towns in southeast Lebanon.
“We’ll go to our town and be happy (again), despite the fact that our homes have been destroyed and we lost young people,” Shukeir said.
On Monday, Ramzi Kaiss from Human Rights Watch said “Israel’s deliberate demolition of civilian homes and infrastructure” was making it “impossible for many residents to return.”
Since the cross-border hostilities began in October 2023, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the health ministry.
On the Israeli side of the border, 78 people including soldiers have been killed, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, with an additional 56 troops dead in southern Lebanon during the ground offensive.
Around 60 people have reportedly been killed since the truce began, two dozen of them on January 26 as residents tried to return to border towns on the initial withdrawal deadline.
On Monday evening, Lebanon’s government said the state should be the sole bearer of arms, in a thinly veiled message on Hezbollah’s arsenal.
Calls for the Iran-backed group’s disarmament have multiplied since the end of the war that has weakened the group.


Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’

Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’
Updated 18 February 2025
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Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’

Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’
  • It was in Homs that rebels first took up arms to fight Assad’s crackdown on protests in 2011
  • Since Assad’s ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled

HOMS, Syria: Once dubbed the capital of the revolution against Bashar Assad, Homs saw some of the fiercest fighting in Syria’s civil war. Now, displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods, only to find them in ruins.
It was in Homs that rebels first took up arms to fight Assad’s crackdown on protests in 2011.
The military responded by besieging and bombarding rebel areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin and French journalist Remi Ochlik were killed in a bombing in 2012.
Since Assad’s ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled following successive evacuation agreements that saw Assad take back control.
“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.
“We removed the rubble, lay a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.
“Despite the destruction, we’re happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”
Her husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.
The siege of Homs lasted two years and killed around 2,200 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
During the siege, thousands of civilians and rebels were left with nothing to eat but dried foods and grass.
In May 2014, under an evacuation deal negotiated with the former government, most of those trapped in the siege were evacuated, and two years later, Assad seized the last rebel district of Waer.
“We were besieged... without food or water, under air raids, and barrel bombings,” before being evacuated to the rebel-held north, Turki said.
AFP journalists saw dozens of families returning to Homs from northern Syria, many of them tearful as they stepped out of the buses organized by local activists.
Among them was Adnan Abu Al-Ezz, 50, whose son was wounded by shelling during the siege and who later died because soldiers at a checkpoint barred him from taking him to hospital.
“They refused to let me pass, they were mocking me,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“I knew my house was nearly destroyed, but I came back to the precious soil of Homs,” he said.
While protests and fighting spread across Syria over the course of the 13-year war, Homs’s story of rebellion holds profound symbolism for the demonstrators.
It was there that Abdel Basset Al-Sarout, a football goalkeeper in the national youth team, joined the protests and eventually took up arms.
He became something of a folk hero to many before he joined an Islamist armed group and was eventually killed in fighting.
In 2013, his story became the focus of a documentary by Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki named “The Return to Homs,” which won international accolades.
Homs returnee Abu Al-Moatasim, who remembers Sarout, recounted being detained for joining a protest.
When he saw security personnel approaching in a car, he prayed for “God to drop rocket on us so I die” before reaching the detention center, one of a network dotted around the country that were known for torture.
His father bribed an officer in exchange for his release a few days later, he said.
In Baba Amr, for a time early in the war a bastion of the rebel Free Syrian Army, there was rubble everywhere.
The army recaptured the district in March 2012, following a siege and an intense bombardment campaign.
It was there that Colvin and Ochlik were killed in a bombing of an opposition press center.
In 2019, a US court found Assad’s government culpable in Colvin’s death, ordering a $302.5 million judgment for what it called an “unconscionable” attack that targeted journalists.
Touring the building that housed the press center, Abdel Qader Al-Anjari, 40, said he was an activist helping foreign journalists at that time.
“Here we installed the first Internet router to communicate with the outside world,” he said.
“Marie Colvin was martyred here, targeted by the regime because they did not want (anyone) to document what was happening,” he said.
He described her as a “friend” who defied the “regime blackout imposed on journalists” and others documenting the war.
After leaving Homs, Anjari himself became a rebel fighter, and years later took part in the offensive that ousted Assad on December 8, 2024.
“Words cannot describe what I felt when I reached the outskirts of Homs,” he said.
Now, he has decided to lay down his arms.
“This phase does not call for fighters, it calls for people to build a state,” he said.