Hamas announced on Monday that it had elected Khalil al-Hayya as the head of the terrorist organization’s political bureau, succeeding Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces in October 2024.
“The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] announces the election of the mujahid [jihadist] brother Khalil al-Hayya as head of the movement’s political bureau, succeeding the martyred leader Yahya Sinwar,” the terrorist group said in an official statement posted to Telegram.
In May, Hamas elected al-Hayya as its leader in the Gaza Strip. Arabic media reports at the time said the terrorist group planned to appoint another senior figure from Gaza to replace al-Hayya if he became head of the political bureau.
A U.S.-brokered ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10, 2025, ended the two-year war that began when Hamas, other Palestinian terrorist groups and Gazan “civilians” invaded the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, slaughtering some 1,200 people, wounding thousands and taking 251 hostages.
All three of Hamas’s top leaders—Sinwar in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh abroad and Saleh al-Arouri in Judea and Samaria—were eliminated by Israel’s security forces within roughly a year after the Oct. 7 massacre.
Before Oct. 7, al-Hayya served as deputy to Sinwar. He has maintained close ties with Tehran and was among the top Hamas officials who met with Iran’s now-slain supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Al-Hayya left the Gaza Strip before the Oct. 7 onslaught and has since mostly been based in Qatar, though he has also made visits to Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. He has since headed Hamas’s negotiating team in ceasefire talks with the United States.
