GAZA — Hamas has named Khalil Al-Hayya as its overall leader, according to a statement from the Palestinian group on Monday. “The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) announces the election of brother mujahid Khalil Al-Hayya as head of the movement’s political bureau, succeeding the martyred leader Yahya Al-Sinwar,” Hamas said in a statement. Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in October 2024 in Gaza.Al-Hayya, a former deputy chairman of the Palestinian group, won an internal ballot in a run-off against former Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal.Al-Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator, has become an increasingly central figure in the leadership of Hamas since the deaths of Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Iran in July 2024.A longtime member of Hamas’s political leadership, Al-Hayya has played a key role in ceasefire negotiations with Israel and in managing the group’s ties with regional allies, particularly Iran.Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, al-Hayya joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s before becoming a founding member of Hamas when the group was established in 1987.Over the decades, he rose through the organisation’s ranks and worked closely with former leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.Al-Hayya has been central to Hamas’s diplomatic efforts, helping broker ceasefire talks with Israel, including negotiations that ended the 2014 Gaza conflict and subsequent attempts to halt the ongoing war.Considered to have close ties with Iran, a key backer of Hamas, he has also served as the group’s main representative to the Arab and Islamic world.Al-Hayya was among top officials targeted in an Israeli attack in Doha in 2025, Israeli officials told Reuters.
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