These are Hamas’s top leaders
The fate of a top Hamas commander is unknown after Israel launched an airstrike in central Gaza over the weekend, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said at a news conference Monday. The target of the strike was Marwan Issa, who is second-in-command in Hamas’s military wing.
If his death is confirmed, Issa would be the highest-ranking Hamas official killed by Israeli military forces since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which Issa is thought to have helped plan.
Eliminating Hamas’s leadership won’t necessarily debilitate the group, experts say, as Hamas lacks a single figurehead and there are many in line ready to take the place of those killed. The group has both political and military wings. Some of its leaders live in Gaza; others are scattered across the Middle East. Some are public figures, while others operate in the shadows.
Here are some of the group’s most important figures.
1. Yehiya Sinwar
Yehiya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, is known by Israelis as the “butcher of Khan Younis,” his hometown in southern Gaza. He previously did counterintelligence work for Hamas, targeting spies and informants within the group.
He is believed to be one of the few Hamas leaders who planned the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and is thought to be hiding in or around Khan Younis in tunnels, said Jonathan Lord, a senior fellow and director of the Middle East security program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.
The scale of Oct. 7 can be attributed to Sinwar’s methodical approach to creating the plan and communicating about in a “very analog way,” Lord said. Sinwar, he said, kept discussions off devices that could be tapped by Israeli intelligence and kept the circle of those who knew about the attack “very small.”
Sinwar spent two decades in an Israeli prison for orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers. He speaks fluent Hebrew and is considered to have a deep understanding of Israel.
He was released from prison in 2011 as part of a large prisoner swap that involved the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
2. Mohammed Deif
Mohammed Deif is the commander of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, and is considered another of the main architects of the Oct. 7 attack.
Much about him is unknown, adding to his mystique among Hamas supporters in Gaza. “He’s a legend,” a member of a Hamas security detail, Ahmed, told The Washington Post of Deif in 2014. Imad Falouji, a former senior Hamas leader, told The Post then that Deif kept a low profile, moving around with “different passports and different identities.”
In the aftermath of the October attack, Deif is thought to be hiding in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza. Israel said it demolished a tunnel network where one of his hideouts was located. The claim could not be independently verified. He has evaded multiple Israeli assassination attempts, although some members of his family have been killed.
3. Marwan Issa
Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing and the right-hand man to Deif, is believed to run many of Hamas’s day-to-day operations, said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. With Deif spending much of his life incognito, Issa helps run logistical operations for the al-Qassem Brigades. Israel considers Issa a very significant threat, Byman said.
4. Mohammed Sinwar
Mohammed Sinwar is the right-hand man to his brother, Yehiya Sinwar. Although he has long been rumored to have been killed, the IDF has indicated recently that he is alive. It said in early November that it had raided Mohammed’s office, where it said it found “military doctrine documents.” In December, the IDF also released what it said was video of Mohammed in a car inside a Gaza tunnel.
If Israel assassinates the Sinwar brothers and Deif, it could “find a way to declare victory” and end the war in Gaza, Lord said.
5. Ismail Haniyeh
Separately from those who run Hamas’s military and government in Gaza, many of the group’s political leaders are based outside the enclave.
The head of Hamas’s political operations is Ismail Haniyeh, who conducts much of his work from the Qatari capital of Doha. His role, according to Lord, is to be the face of Hamas, spread the group’s political rhetoric and try to raise money to fund its operations.
With the political and military leaders of Hamas kept separate — geographically and organizationally — it is unclear to what extent political leaders such as Haniyeh knew about the Oct. 7 attack. Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, following an election to determine who would preside over the enclave after Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005. No elections have been held since 2006. Haniyeh was chosen by members of the group to be president of its political bureau in 2017.
6. Khaled Meshal
Once the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal is now in charge of the group’s diaspora office, cultivating support for Hamas abroad, including among Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. After the Oct. 7 attack and the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, Meshal called for protests in Muslim nations, saying in a recorded statement, “This is a moment of truth and the borders are close to you; you all know your responsibility.”
Meshal survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 1997. The attempted killing, in the Jordanian capital, Amman, threw Jordan’s relations with Israel into disarray. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also prime minister in 1997, ordered the poisoning, U.S. and Israeli officials said at the time. Meshal survived after officials from the United States and Jordan demanded that Israel give him the antidote.
He has said the assassination attempt was a pivotal moment in his life, calling it his second birth.
7. Saleh Arouri
Saleh Arouri, who was second-in-command of Hamas’s political wing, was killed in a Beirut suburb on Jan. 2. Hezbollah, the Iranian-aligned militant and political group in Lebanon that has engaged in skirmishes with Israel, said Arouri was killed by a drone armed with three rockets. Hezbollah said Israel was to blame for the attack, but Israel has not claimed responsibility for the killing.
The most senior Hamas leader killed since the Oct. 7 attack, Arouri had been imprisoned in Israel on multiple occasions and was a founder of the al-Qassam Brigades. Israel accused him in 2014 of planning the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers, triggering an Israeli response in Gaza that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians.
Arouri’s death in Beirut sent a signal to Hamas leaders outside Gaza that they were not immune to the risk of assassination.
Source » msn.com
