Khaled Yacoub Oweis
The National / August 8, 2024
Group’s choice of new overall leader consolidates Tehran ties but may have also been an act of defiance towards Israel, security experts say.
The elevation of hardliner Yahya Sinwar to overall leader of Hamas consolidates Iran’s influence over the Palestinian group as it fights Israel for survival in Gaza, according to Arab security sources.
Hamas and other Iran-allied regional non-state groups have the ability to attack Israel from closer range than Iran’s own forces, making them vital to Tehran if the Gaza war develops into a sustained regional conflict.
Sinwar, the top Hamas official in Gaza since 2017, is considered the mastermind of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel that caused the current war in the enclave.
He succeeds Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based president of the Hamas politburo who was assassinated in Tehran on July 31.
Sinwar is believed to be operating from Hamas’s network of underground bunkers and tunnels in Gaza as Hamas and allied Palestinian militant groups resist Israel’s military onslaught.
Although Haniyeh nominally led the negotiations for a ceasefire, he did not have the power to bypass Sinwar. The latter’s promotion now puts both the military and political wings of Hamas firmly in his grip.
“Haniyeh was a moderate, despite everything,” a senior Arab security official told The National. “Sinwar is a man of war. The country that holds the most sway on Hamas [Iran] has anointed him as leader.”
The official said Israel and the US, as well as Arab mediators, will be dealing with “an elusive figure” in setbacks-ridden drive to reach a ceasefire.
“Iran has complicated the situation for everyone,” said the official, who did not want to be identified.
The head of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and its armed forces chief, defence minister and caretaker foreign minister all issued messages welcoming Sinwar’s new role, the state IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.
IRGC chief Maj Gen Hossein Salami said Sinwar’s appointment as political leader of Hamas had “deeply worried” Israel and its supporters, IRNA reported.
But Marwan Shehadeh, a Jordanian scholar who specializes in militant movements, said Israel’s continued obstruction of ceasefire initiatives had forced Hamas into choosing Sinwar.
“Hamas has sent a strong political message that this will be a long war,” Shehadeh said.
He said Hamas had also signaled that it was not under Tehran’s thumb by burying Haniyeh in Qatar, not Iran, even though part of his funeral service was held in the Iranian capital.
A “solid military alliance” underpins the Hamas-Iran relationship, but Hamas makes its own decisions as an “institution”, with Iran respecting its stature as a resistance movement, Shehadeh said.
In Arab security circles, Haniyeh was seen as the liaison between Iran’s leadership and Sinwar, having had connections to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who he met in Tehran hours before he was killed.
The choice of Sinwar as Haniyeh’s successor was reportedly made by the Hamas’ Shura (Council), whose members are mostly unidentified and come from both inside Gaza and outside it.
Sinwar’s ascendancy undermines more pragmatic figures in Hamas with wider exposure to the international political arena and possible misgivings about Iran, such as former politburo head Khaled Meshaal, Arab security sources said.
Many observers had thought that Meshaal would make a comeback as leader after Haniyeh’s assassination.
But Sinwar’s role as an operations man contributed to his close ties with Iran and strengthened his position in the group’s circles of power, the sources said, noting that he also had open channels with Egypt before October 7.
“Sinwar might be good for Iran but Hamas has been robbed of flexibility,” one of the sources said. “They have become completely led by a man who is literally in tunnel vision.”
Khaled Yacoub Oweis – Jordan Correspondent, Amman
