Yahya Sinwar

Yahya Sinwar (, born 1962, also spelled Yehya Sinwar) is a Palestinian politician and the leader of Hamas, the Sunni Islamist political and military organization that controls the Gaza Strip. He has been the leader of Hamas since February 2017 when he replaced Ismail Haniyeh. He was one of the co-founders of the security apparatus of Hamas. Born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Egyptian-ruled Gaza in 1962, his family was expelled or fled from Al-Majdal Asqalan (Ashkelon) during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He finished his studies at the Islamic University of Gaza where he received a bachelor's degree in Arabic Studies. Orchestrating abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he considered to be collaborators in 1989, he was sentenced to four life sentences by Israel, of which he served 22 years until his release among 1,026 others in a 2011 prisoner exchange with an Israeli soldier. In 2017, he was elected as Hamas' leader, and claimed to pursue "peaceful, popular resistance" the following year, a position which was later abandoned. He was re-elected as Hamas leader in 2021, and was subject to an assassination attempt by Israel that year. In September 2015, Sinwar was designated a terrorist by the United States government, and Hamas and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have also been designated terrorist organisations by the United States, the European Union and other countries and organisations.