Hamas announced on Tuesday Yahya Sinwar as the new political leader of the militant group after the murder of Ismail Haniyeh.
Haniyeh was killed last week when an airstrike hit his home in Tehran, where the Hamas leader was attending the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has been blamed for the attack, which also killed Haniyeh’s bodyguard.
“Hamas announces the appointment of brother leader Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement’s political bureau, succeeding the late leader Ismail Haniyeh, may God have mercy on him,” the group said in a statement Tuesday.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Avichay Adraee strongly criticized the decision to install Sinwar, the man accused by Israel of plotting the October 7 attack on Israel.
“There is only one place reserved for Yahya Sinwar and that is next to Mohammed Al-DeifMarwan Issa and the rest of the Hamas ISIS members responsible for the October 7 massacre that we killed,” Adraee said on X.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Sinwar an “arch-murderer” and said his appointment is “another reason to eliminate him quickly and erase the memory of this organization from the face of the earth.”
Sinwar, the Hamas leader responsible for day-to-day administration in Gaza before October 7, is believed to be hiding in the labyrinth of tunnels According to Israeli officials, these weapons are used by Hamas militants in Gaza to hide weapons, fighters and hostages.
The elusive leader was last seen in a 42 second clip Filmed three days after the attack, it shows 61-year-old Sinwar and his family fleeing through a tunnel in southern Gaza, the Israeli military said.
“The hunt will not stop until we capture him, dead or alive,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, said in a televised statement in February.
Born in a Gaza refugee camp in the early 1960s, Sinwar joined Hamas after it was founded in 1987. He earned a reputation for brutality after reportedly helping form the militant group’s internal security force, according to a profile of him by the European Council on Foreign Relationsa think tank.
In 1988, he was sentenced to life in prison for planning the murder of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians he suspected of collaborating with Israel. He was released in 2011, one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for Gilad Shalitan Israeli soldier who has been held by Hamas for more than five years.
After his release, Sinwar quickly rose through the ranks within Hamas, and was elected leader of the group in a secret ballot in 2017. Upon taking power, Sinwar sought to improve ties with Egypt and Fatah, the secular Palestinian political party that partially governs the occupied West Bank and defeats Hamas in Gaza, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Sinwar has been in hiding since October 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli counts. Israel has now declared war in Gaza and has killed more than 40,000 people in the enclave, according to local officials.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
