Sinwar was sentenced to 4 life sentences and spent a good portion of his life in an Israeli jail but was released in a prisoner exchange. He is considered an extremist even within HAMAS and likely will make any sort of peace process an impossibility. It should be noted he was unanimously voted into the new position.
www.bbc.com
EPA
Hamas names Yahya Sinwar as new overall leader
Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as its new political chief, replacing Ismail Haniyeh who was killed last week.
www.bbc.com
Hamas names Yahya Sinwar as new overall leader
Rushdi Abualouf
Tom Bennett
Yahya Sinwar has served as Hamas's leader in Gaza since 2017
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The Hamas leadership unanimously chose Sinwar to lead the movement, a senior Hamas official told the BBC.
The announcement comes at a moment of soaring tensions in the Middle East, as Iran and its allies threaten retaliation for the killing of Haniyeh, which they blame on Israel. Israel has not commented.
Many scenarios were discussed, but ultimately, just two names were put forward: Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Hassan Darwish, a shadowy figure who heads the General Shura Council, a body that elects Hamas's Politburo.
The council voted unanimously to choose Sinwar, in what one Hamas official described to the BBC as “a message of defiance to Israel”.
“They killed Haniyeh, the flexible person who was open to solutions. Now they have to deal with Sinwar and the military leadership,” the official said.
Prior to his death, Ismail Haniyeh was viewed by regional diplomats as a pragmatic figure compared to others in Hamas - a key driver of the group’s political outreach.
Yahya Sinwar, on the other hand, is viewed as one of Hamas’s most extreme figures.
Sinwar currently tops Israel’s most-wanted list. Israel's security agencies believe he masterminded the planning and execution of the 7 October 2023 attacks, which left over 1,200 people dead and 251 taken back into Gaza as hostages.
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“Yahya Sinwar is a terrorist, who is responsible for the most brutal terrorist attack in history," Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari told Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya.
Sinwar has not been seen in public since the attacks in October, and is believed to be hiding “10 storeys underground” in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in June.
Javed Ali, a former US National Security Council official, told the BBC that Sinwar's appointment could further hinder ceasefire and hostage release talks as he is "much more inflexible and much more difficult to negotiate with". . . STORY CONTINUES AT LINK ABOVE