Hamas has elected Khalil al-Hayya as its new overall leader, replacing Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in October 2024. A senior Hamas official confirmed that al-Hayya was chosen "by an overwhelming majority" following two rounds of internal voting, and is expected to formally assume the role within days. The political bureau is set to convene in Istanbul to restructure Hamas's leadership bodies, while the five-member council that had guided the group since Sinwar's death will be dissolved.
The 65-year-old al-Hayya, who had already been leading Hamas from exile in Qatar and Turkey, defeated former political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal in the contest. The first round of voting proved inconclusive — Meshaal narrowly led but failed to surpass the threshold of 36 votes from the 69-member electoral college required for outright victory — before al-Hayya prevailed in a first-past-the-post runoff. Raised in Gaza and educated at the territory's Islamic University before completing postgraduate studies in Jordan and Sudan, al-Hayya spent three years in Israeli prisons in the late 1990s and has survived multiple assassination attempts, including an Israeli air strike targeting Hamas leaders in Doha in September 2025 that killed five people, among them one of his sons. Several other family members, including his wife and three children, were killed in earlier Israeli operations.
The choice reflects a deepening strategic divide within Hamas. Meshaal's supporters had advocated a more pragmatic course, drawing lessons from the war and stepping back from a strategy centred primarily on armed confrontation. Al-Hayya's backers, who argued that Gaza's leadership — having borne the heaviest cost of the conflict — should now steer the movement, carried the vote. His election is widely seen as a signal that Hamas will resist pressure to disarm, insisting on a guaranteed political pathway to Palestinian statehood before any demobilisation. Palestinian political analyst Reham Owda described the choice as a message that Hamas remains committed to armed struggle and intends to rebuild its military capacity while preserving its alliance with Iran and the broader regional network of armed groups hostile to Israel.
The decision complicates ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the war. A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has been in place since October, but fighting has continued, with Israeli forces still controlling more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip. A US-backed peace framework calls for Hamas's disarmament and envisions a technocratic Palestinian authority overseeing the territory, terms Hamas has rejected without security guarantees and a clear political horizon. Al-Hayya, who led Hamas's delegations in indirect talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt, is known to maintain working relationships with both Arab states and Iran — a combination that may give him diplomatic reach while hardening the group's negotiating stance.
Hamas, founded in 1987 and designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and numerous other governments, is navigating one of the gravest crises in its history. The Gaza war, triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 that killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, has left much of the territory in ruins, dismantled Hamas's governing structures, and eliminated much of its senior leadership. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health authorities.