Hamas said Tuesday it has chosen Yahya Sinwar, its top official in Gaza who masterminded the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, as its new leader. The choice of the hardliner was a defiant move by the Palestinian militant group, whose political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran last week in a presumed Israeli strike, the AP reports. Sinwar is at the top of Israel's kill list as it seeks to destroy Hamas and its leadership after the attacks in which militants killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took about 250 as hostages. Unlike Haniyeh, who had lived in exile in Qatar for years, Sinwar has remained in Gaza.
As Hamas' leader in the territory since 2017, the 61-year-old rarely appeared in public but kept an iron grip on Hamas' rule. Close to the armed wing of Hamas, known as the Qassam Brigades, he worked to build up the group's military capabilities. Sinwar has been in deep hiding since the Oct. 7 attacks, while Israel unleashed its campaign in Gaza and the death toll among Palestinians, now near 40,000, rose. Palestinian political analyst Fuad Khuffash tells the New York Times that the appointment as the group's political leader is a "symbolic decision" to show that other Hamas officials agree with Sinwar's approach in Gaza.
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