Meet the De facto ruler of the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar.

• Hamas, (Palestine Resistance Movement) is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic belief centric body that controls the Gaza Strip.

“Yahya Al-Sinwar” or “Yahiya Sinwar” is the current Palestinian leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

He took over the leadership charge from Ismail Haniyeh in February 2017.

He was one of the co-founders of the security organization of Hamas, the Munazzamat al Jihad w’al-Dawa (Majd).

Sinwar is the second most powerful figure within Hamas.

Sinwar is the leader of Hamas military wing “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam” in the Gaza Strip.

In September 2015, Sinwar was designated a terrorist by the United States government.

Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades have also been designated terrorist organizations by the United States and other countries and organizations.

Sinwar is a local Palestinian who born in 1962, in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis, State of Palestine and is around age of 58–59, according to various news sources.

At this refugee camp he spent his early life, when it was under Egyptian rule.

After he graduated from high school at Khan Yunis Secondary School for Boys, he went on to the Islamic University of Gaza, where he received a bachelor's degree in Arabic Studies.

In his early life Sinwar worked as activists, he was first arrested in 1982, he served several months in the Far'a prison where he met other Palestinian activists, including Salah Shehade, and dedicated himself to the Palestine cause.

Sinwar was arrested again in 1985, upon his release he together with Rawhi Mushtaha co-founded the Munazzamat al Jihad w’al-Dawa (Majd) a security organization.

It took the responsibility to provide security across the state, and also it worked to identify Israeli spies in the Palestinian movement, the organization later in 1987 became the “police” of Gaza.

In 1988, he was arrested, convicted for murder of two Israeli soldiers allegedly, and sentenced in 1989 to four life sentences.

He tried to escape several times but was always caught.

Sinwar served 22 years of his sentence before being released in 2011 and sent to Gaza as part of the prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier.

In February 2017 Sinwar was elected Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, taking over from Ismail Haniyeh.

On 16 May 2018, in an unexpected announcement on Al Jazeera, Sinwar stated that Hamas would follow “peaceful, popular resistance”, opening the possibility that Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by many countries, may play a role in negotiations with Israel.

A week earlier he had encouraged Gazans to breach the Israeli siege, saying “We would rather die as martyrs than die out of oppression and humiliation”, and adding, “We are ready to die, and tens of thousands will die with us.”

In March 2021, he was elected to a second four-year term as the head of Hamas Gaza branch in an election held in secret.

He is the highest-ranking Hamas official in Gaza and Gaza's de facto ruler, as well as the second most powerful member of Hamas after Ismail Haniyeh.

On the 15th of May 2021 an Israeli airstrike was reported to have hit the home of the Hamas leader, there were no immediate details of any deaths or injured.

Israel targeted the Khan Yunis region of southern Gaza, in the midst of hyped tension between Israel and Palestine.

Hamas fired around 4000 rockets on Israel during the period, according to Israeli officials. Most of these were destroyed by their defence system.