Behind-the-scenes look at Hamas electing new leader

Over the previous week, with the eye of the world’s media, senior Hamas leaders got here to Qatar to decide on a brand new political chief for the group.

Delegates from throughout the Center East flocked to the occasion after practically a 12 months of combating between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.

Some arrived in shock, having woken up days earlier to be taught that the group’s former political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, had been killed in a bombing in Tehran, allegedly by Israel.

Haniyeh, who has overseen the group’s negotiators in negotiations with Israel, has performed an important function in Hamas, balancing the will of militants to wage battle towards Israel with calls from some for reconciliation and an finish to the battle.

It was clear that his place needed to be stuffed shortly.

At a mourning ceremony in Doha, Hamas leaders lined up aspect by aspect in an enormous white tent with carpets and stylish chairs embellished with pictures of Ismail Haniyeh. Tons of of individuals gathered to pay their respects to the late chief of the motion and his bodyguards.

This scene is greater than only a memorial service, it marks the top of an period and the start of a brand new, extra excessive part.

This isn’t the primary time I’ve witnessed senior Hamas officers collect to decide on a brand new chief after an sudden funeral. Again in 2004, I witnessed their assembly — held at his house in Gaza — after Israel assassinated the group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Lower than a month later, Israel killed his successor, Abdul Aziz al-Randisi.

However the backstage discussions this time mirrored the dimensions of the disaster and challenges they face.

On October 7 final 12 months, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 individuals and taking 251 hostages again to Gaza. Since then, Israeli navy retaliation has killed greater than 39,600 individuals and injured tens of 1000’s, in keeping with the Hamas Well being Ministry. Greater than half of the buildings in Gaza have been broken or destroyed, and practically your entire inhabitants has been displaced. Opposition to Hamas, which has dominated Gaza since 2007, has been rising. The group itself additionally suffered heavy losses.

On prime of this, the killing of Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 in Tehran – which he had all the time thought-about a protected haven – was an actual shock to the group.

Hamas is satisfied Haniyeh was killed by an anti-personnel missile whereas shopping on his cell phone. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards mentioned a 7-kilogram warhead was used. Some Western media reported that he was killed by a bomb positioned within the room prematurely.

Again at Dohaniya’s mourning ceremony, a person in his 60s with grey hair and a brief beard stood in a nook away from the highlight.

“Control him,” a Hamas media official advised me. who’s he? “He’s the mysterious man, Abu Omar Hassan,” he mentioned.

Abu Omar Hassan, also called Mohamed Hassan Darwish, is the chairman of the Supreme Shura Council, Hamas’s highest consultative physique. Below Hamas’s structure, he’s in prime place to function the group’s interim chief forward of elections scheduled for subsequent March.

“He is a person with an enormous mission,” I used to be advised.

After the mourning ceremony ended, the true work of those leaders started. For 2 days, the motion’s veterans and shadowy figures met in Doha to elect a brand new chief.

They selected Yahya Sinwar, who has been the group’s chief in Gaza since 2017. Anybody who has adopted his profession since he was launched within the commerce for soldier Gilad Shalit knew there was all the time the chance that he would someday lead Hamas.

No Hamas political chief is as near the group’s armed wing. His brother Mohammed leads Hamas’ largest navy battalion, whereas Mohammed Deif – the elusive Hamas veteran who led its armed wing for twenty years till Israel mentioned he was killed final month – —are his neighbors, pals and classmates. The 2 grew up collectively within the sprawling Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.

Nonetheless, many might imagine it is loopy to nominate him to Hamas’s most vital place. Israeli safety companies imagine Sinwar deliberate and carried out assaults in southern Israel and he’s on the prime of their most needed record.

“Not everybody within the Hamas management agrees with this determination,” a senior Hamas official advised me. “Some leaders raised their issues and others urged a extra average alternative. However ultimately he acquired a majority of the votes.

One other Hamas official who attended the assembly mentioned the motion felt unable to pick highly effective shadow operative Abu Omar al-Hassan as a result of he had little public profile and was unknown exterior the motion. The assault on October 7 introduced Yahya Sinwar world notoriety.

“Sinwar turned a trademark after October 7 and he was extremely popular within the Arab and Islamic world,” the official mentioned. “He has shut ties to the Iran-backed axis of resistance and his appointment in the course of the battle despatched a message of contempt to Israel.”

The “Axis of Resistance” is a community of armed teams backed by Iran. Different Lebanon-based Hezbollah teams additionally pose a risk to Israel.

Many Arab and a few Western officers have urged Hamas to not appoint Sinwar as chief due to his hyperlinks to the Oct. 7 assault. He and the group he now leads are listed as terrorists by many Western governments.

“One of many causes we voted for him is we needed to honor him for planning the assault,” the official mentioned. “October seventh belongs to him, so he ought to lead the motion.”

Within the ten months since that assault, all makes an attempt to achieve a ceasefire have failed. The BBC understands that the 2 predominant mediators, Qatar and Egypt, are engaged on new ceasefire proposals.

The plan was based mostly on persuading Iran to not reply militarily to the assassination of Haniyeh on its territory in trade for Israel ending its battle in Gaza and withdrawing its troops from the Philadelphia Hall, leaked info exhibits.

The Philadelphia Hall is a buffer zone, solely about 100m (330 ft) huge in elements, that runs alongside the Gaza aspect of the 13-kilometer (8-mile) border with Egypt. Gaza’s solely different land border is with Israel itself.

A Palestinian official conversant in the ceasefire negotiations advised me in Doha: “Egyptian intelligence has despatched a staff to Doha and is assembly to develop an motion plan based mostly on insulating the world from attainable Iranian reactions… in trade for ceasefire.

For now, the drumbeat of battle is simply getting louder, with Hamas’ most excessive determine Sinwar set to steer the group for the following 5 years – if he survives the battle.