Yahya Sinwar will hold sway over Hamas from beyond the grave
Summary
- Will his death moderate or aggravate its bloody ethos?
AFTER THE Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in 2021 Yahya Sinwar appeared sitting on a sofa in the open air, surrounded by rubble and smiling. It became a defining image of resistance for many Hamas supporters. This time the story has ended differently. In a video released by the Israeli military, a shattered figure on an armchair inside a building is seen feebly launching a stick at a hovering drone. Hamas now accepts that Mr Sinwar died soon after; on October 18th it said that his death would only increase the strength and resilience of the movement. In fact Mr Sinwar’s death leaves it shattered and divided, with rival factions now likely to vie for control of its remaining resources and its ideological objectives. To understand this contest you have to grasp how he concentrated power in his hands, to catastrophic effect.
To his supporters the architect of the October 7th atrocities punctured Israel’s sense of invincibility and catapulted a waning cause into the world’s headlines. To his opponents he brought hellfire down onto Gaza and caused death and ruination there. His rise was the culmination of decades of planning and outmanoeuvring of opponents, turning a movement into the Sinwar show. In prison in Israel, this violent and calculating man became more systematic in his thinking, while attaining a position of leadership within Hamas’s influential prison constituency and a name for murdering suspected collaborators behind bars. “He had this military mindset," said Khaled Zawawi, who was incarcerated with Mr Sinwar. According to Yuval Bitton, a prison dentist who became an Israeli intelligence agent, “he studied us through enemy eyes… he looked for weakness, for a point at which he could say, this is the time to attack".
Upon his release in a prisoner swap he had helped negotiate in 2011 Mr Sinwar was initially appointed to Hamas’s Gaza bureau and by 2017 he was elected to lead it. His lieutenants from prison rose with him. Rawhi Mushta would become Gaza’s de facto prime minister, and Tawfiq Abu Naim and Mr Sinwar built up a feared internal-security department together. Mr Sinwar also strengthened the military wing—the Al Qassam brigades. His brother Mohammed was a commander and Mr Sinwar drew in those with uncompromising views.
Hamas’s less extreme actors were marginalised, including Khaled Meshaal, who put together a new charter for the organisation in 2017 that appeared to give a nod towards a two-state solution, unlike the group’s founding charter from 1988 which commits to the “obliteration" of Israel in its opening paragraph. Among the many forced out was Fathi Hammad, a former interior minister pushed into a powerless position in the group’s Istanbul office. By 2021 the strip had become Mr Sinwar’s fief and he was confident enough to execute veteran Hamas commanders. He began to ignore the group’s powerful Shura council, and kept exiled leaders in Doha at least partially in the dark about his plans. In the end his moment of absolute power was a pyrrhic victory. In July an Israeli attack in Iran assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s notional supreme leader. Mr Sinwar formally assumed leadership of the whole of Hamas, in the process breaching its internal succession rules. Focused on survival and ceasefire negotiations in which he overplayed his hand, he only had a few weeks more to live.
His accumulation of absolute authority inevitably means he leaves behind a power vacuum. Hamas’s resilience over the decades owes something to the fact that it had found ways to institutionalise authority. But now its formal organisational structure—the Shura council, which at least notionally represents members, and its politburo—has been marginalised by a combination of assassinations and Mr Sinwar’s concentration of decision-making.
One struggle will be over the physical location of Hamas’s centre of power. Although thousands of fighters and a few commanders remain in the strip, including Mr Sinwar’s brother, their exhaustion and weakness might allow other power hubs to wrest power away from Gaza. Hardliners may dream now of negotiating a ceasefire and hostage-release in return for a release of Palestinian prisoners and de facto recognition of Hamas’s authority in parts of Gaza, but Israel is unlikely to offer the same terms that Mr Sinwar rejected when his movement was stronger earlier in the year.
It may instead seek what amounts to the movement’s surrender, with a demand that any surviving Hamas leaders take safe passage from the strip and dissolve Hamas’s formal role in Gaza’s governance. Should Hamas balk, Israel may choose to fight on, grinding down the group’s manpower even further. As Hamas’s powerbase fades in Gaza it may face challenges from other local groups.
The other struggle is over the group’s ideology, which is being waged outside Gaza. One potential leader is Khalil al-Haya who was the closest to Mr Sinwar and supports close ties with Iran. Another option is Mr Meshaal, who headed the group until 2017. He might want Hamas to come under the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the national umbrella, even if it had to accept its previous agreements recognising Israel. In the past he has advocated breaking with Iran and Hizbullah. In 2012 he severed the group’s ties with Syria in response to the Iran- and Hizbullah-backed regime’s brutal suppression of the uprising in the country.
Who wins may determine where Hamas goes next. One evolution would be to further embrace violence and extremism, with Iran’s backing, with the intention of rearming and recruiting in Gaza and in the West Bank in the coming years and decades in preparation for another culminating attack on Israel.
Another path leads to moderation and compromise, both over how Gaza is governed and perhaps rebuilt and over the future of relations between the Palestinians and Israel. Power politics at the top of Hamas will determine which route is taken, but the views of ordinary Palestinians will matter, too. Opinion polls, conducted mainly by mobile phone and not wholly reliable, still indicate significant backing for Hamas, as well as significant opposition: in September 35% of Gazans and 37% of West Bankers said they still supported the group. It remains to be seen if these adherents will now embrace or reject the Sinwar way.
