ISRAELI OCCUPIED GAZA - Hamas is being run by a six-man leadership that brings together top officials in both the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora. Khalil Al Hayya, a close aide of Yahya Sinwar, the group's former leader who was killed by Israel in Gaza this month, has emerged as his likely successor, sources told The National.

They said the six-man leadership took over the militant group shortly after the killing of Mr Sinwar. Hamas has been run by a joint leadership before: the model was adopted for several years in Gaza in the 1990s when Sheikh Ahmed Yassin served as the group's spiritual leader.

The members of the joint leadership, according to the sources, are Khaled Mashal, who was Hamas's leader until 2017, Mr Al Hayaa, and Zaher Jabareen, the group's intelligence and financial chief. All three are based in Qatar, and Mr Jabareen also spends time in Turkey.

Also included in the collective leadership are Mohammed Sinwar, the late Yahya Sinwar's younger brother, and Rawhi Mushtaha, who Israel claims to have killed but who sources say is still alive. Both are veterans of Hamas's military wing and are now “operational field commanders”, sources say. Muhammad Darwish, the powerful head of the group's Shura Council, who resides in Turkey, is the sixth man in the group's current leadership.

No overall leader for Hamas will be selected, the sources said, until elections are held early in 2025. However Mr Al Hayaa has already emerged as the most probable successor to Yahya Sinwar, they confirmed.

Mr Al Hayya, who is known to maintain close ties with both Iran and Egypt, was often Hamas's chief representative in nearly a year of fruitless negotiations to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas since its fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7 last year.

Like Yahya Sinwar, Mr Al Hayya, 63, was jailed by Israel for three years in the early 1990s. He survived several assassination attempts which were blamed on Israel and in which nearly 30 of his family members, including two of his sons, were killed. He earned a doctorate in Islamic studies from a university in Sudan in 1997. A faithful disciple of Sheikh Yassin, Mr Al Hayya was one of the founders of Hamas in the 1980s.

“Hamas will continue to work towards the creation of a Palestinian state on Palestinian soil with Jerusalem as its capital,” he declared when announcing the death of Yahya Sinwar. The sources said the ascension of Mr Al Hayya to become leader of Hamas is far from a foregone conclusion, adding that Mr Mashal also has a good chance of taking the helm.

The choosing of a new leader comes at a critical time for Hamas. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the total annihilation of the group as being among the top goals of the Gaza war. The coastal enclave has been devastated by Israel's military response to Hamas's October 7 attack, with about 42,800 Palestinians dead according to the enclave's Health Ministry, and more than twice that number wounded.

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