Hayya or Meshaal: Who will be the next Hamas leader after Sinwar?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “keep up the war” after the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in a gunfight in southern Gaza on Thursday.

The 62-year-old Sinwar—who was elected to the top leadership of Hamas after the resistance group’s politburo chief Ismael Haniyeh was assassinated by Israel in Tehran on July 31—was supposed to be 'Enemy Number 1' of the Zionist state.

But whether his assassination changed the course of the year-long war in favour of Israel remains open to debate.

Ghoncheh Tazmini, the author of a new book titled Power Couple: Russian-Iranian Alignment in the Middle East, says that removing key leaders from ideologically driven organisations like Hamas does not lead to their collapse or even a shift in their policies.

“These groups are structured to survive such losses to ensure continuity. Someone else will replace the fallen leader, and the core ideology and strategic outlook [will] remain intact,” Tazmini tells TRT World.

Sinwar had led Hamas’s operations in Gaza since 2017. He was fluent in Hebrew, which he learned during his 23 years as a prisoner in Israel. He walked out of Israeli jail in 2011 as part of a prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas.

Tazmini questioned the effectiveness of the “decapitation” method used often by Israel. For example, Haniyeh’s assassination did “little to weaken” Hamas's overall operation. Sinwar’s killing will lead to no different outcome for Israel, she adds.

Leadership void?

Experts believe the assassination of Sinwar will not create a leadership crisis in the Palestinian resistance group.

“Either Khalil al Hayya or Khaled Meshaal is going to take the top position in Hamas,” says Tahani Mustafa, senior analyst for Palestine at the International Crisis Group.

“It won't create a leadership void in Hamas,” she tells TRT World.

Unlike the past, Hamas is likely to have the same person lead its internal and external wings after Sinwar’s assassination, she adds.

One of the contenders for the top post, Meshaal first became the leader of Hamas’s political office in 1996. He barely escaped death when Israeli spies injected a slow-acting poison into his body in Jordan in 1998.

He has been living in exile for years. Even though he left his Hamas position in 2017 for Haniyeh, Meshaal remains an influential official in the group.

Hayya, the current deputy leader of Hamas in Gaza and a possible successor of Sinwar, has also lived in exile for years. He is presently leading the ceasefire negotiations in Qatar.

Asked if the back-to-back assassinations of leaders might lead to a softening of the stance on the part of Hamas, Mustafa says the likely successors of Sinwar are already “moderates”.

“Hayya is not a radical within the movement, and neither is Meshaal,” she says.

Hamas has been “quite conciliatory” even under the radicals, and their demands for a ceasefire, troop withdrawal, end of blockades and the return of displaced Palestinians are already within the realm of international law, she says.

A boon to Netanyahu?

The assassination of Sinwar seems to have brought a “short-term boost” in support for Netanyahu, who has been facing mounting criticism at home for his failure to get Israeli hostages released.

Tazmini says that taking out the Hamas leader is a “tactical success” for the Israeli premier. It serves to reinforce his political position at home and rally his hard-line, right-wing support base at home, she says.

But she expects the overall security situation in Israel to deteriorate, with potential retaliatory attacks from Hamas or other groups.

“This is an escalatory cycle, which will not likely improve the hostage situation, lead to ceasefire negotiations or ‘neutralise’ Hamas. It will not end the multiple conflicts in the Middle East,” she says, adding that Netanyahu will continue to face increasing public criticism and deepening internal divisions.

Mustafa of the International Crisis Group says Sinwar’s killing has been a “symbolic hit” for Hamas–something that Netanyahu is claiming as a "military victory".

But many Palestinians find the way that Sinwar was killed “quite inspiring”, she says.

Sinwar went down fighting in full military uniform, contradicting previous Israeli claims that he had been hiding among Israeli prisoners in tunnels for months in Gaza.

“I think Israelis and the Western world seem to have this very Orientalist perception that Hamas and Palestinians are revolving around particular figures. That's not the case at all”, she says.