Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed on Wednesday in Iran, was among the most senior members of Hamas’s leadership, a group that is tightly coordinated despite being scattered inside and outside Gaza.
Hamas’s leaders, especially those in Gaza, have repeatedly been targets of Israeli assassination attempts, but the group has swiftly replaced those who have been killed.
The group’s leadership structure is often opaque, but here is a look at what we know about some of Hamas’s most prominent leaders who are either believed to be alive or whose fate is unclear.
Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza
Mr. Sinwar helped establish Hamas in the late 1980s around the time of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. He was arrested by the Israeli authorities several times, spending over 20 years in Israeli prison until he was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011.
After rising through Hamas’s ranks, he was elected its leader in Gaza in 2017. Israeli officials said that he was one of the leaders who had masterminded the Oct. 7 attack, alongside Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, and Marwan Issa, the deputy commander, who was killed in an Israeli strike in March. Mr. Sinwar is believed to be hiding in the group’s tunnel network beneath Gaza.
A number of Hamas’s leaders in Gaza, including Mr. Sinwar, are seen as more radical than Mr. Haniyeh, the leader who was killed in Iran. The death of Mr. Haniyeh, who was considered a relatively pragmatic counterpoint, “will make a cease-fire much more difficult to achieve,” said Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Khaled Meshal, a former political head of Hamas
Born near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mr. Meshal became the leader of Hamas’s political office in 1996, directing the group from exile. Two years later, Israeli agents injected him with a slow-acting poison in Jordan, sending him into a coma before he was saved by an antidote provided by Israel as part of a diplomatic deal with Jordan.
Mr. Meshal spent his career moving from one Arab nation to another, living in Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar and Syria. When he stepped down as head of the political office, he was succeeded in 2017 by Mr. Haniyeh. Mr. Meshal, who is still influential in the organization, remains a top official in the group.
Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military
Mr. Deif, another of the suspected planners of the Oct. 7 attacks, joined Hamas as a young man soon after its founding. In 2002, he became the leader of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, succeeding its founder, who was killed in an Israeli strike. Mr. Deif has since orchestrated multiple attacks on Israel, including a series of suicide bombings in 1996.
Earlier this month, Israeli forces bombarded a densely packed coastal area of Gaza with heavy munitions in an attempt to kill Mr. Deif. Scores of Gazans were killed in the attack. Israel has said it believes he may have been killed, but his fate remained unclear.
He had been at the top of Israel’s list of most-wanted terrorists for decades, earlier evading more than eight attempts on his life, according to Israeli intelligence. In 2014, an Israeli airstrike killed one of his wives and their infant son. Israeli officials believe that Mr. Deif, who for years has not been seen publicly, has spent much of the past decades in Hamas’s underground tunnels.
Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy leader of Hamas in Gaza
Mr. al-Hayya, who lives in exile, has been a Hamas official for decades and is currently Mr. Sinwar’s deputy. He survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2007, when an airstrike on his home in Gaza killed members of his family while he was not there.
He was thought to be a contender to succeed Mr. Haniyeh in future internal Hamas elections, Mr. Lovatt said.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a member of Hamas’s top political bureau
One of Hamas’s founders, Mr. Abu Marzouk started his political career in the United Arab Emirates, where he helped found a branch of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas was formed, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations.
He later went to the United States, where he helped found Islamic institutions, including those focused on the Palestinian cause. In 1996, he faced Israeli charges of financing and helping organize terrorist attacks, when he headed Hamas’s political bureau. After 22 months spent in a Manhattan jail on suspicion of terrorism, he agreed to relinquish his permanent residence status in the United States and said he would not contest the terrorism accusations that led to his detention. The United States then deported him to Jordan.
He is now a senior member of the political bureau and splits his time between Gaza, Egypt and Qatar. He is another member of the cast of likely successors to Mr. Haniyeh, Mr. Lovatt said.
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