Hamas new Political leader Yahya Sinwar succeed Martyr Ismail Haniyeh.

“Yahya Al-Sinwar” or “Yahiya Sinwar” is the current Palestinian leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, he is the De facto ruler of the Gaza Strip.

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

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

Sinwar was the second most powerful figure within Hamas before the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran just last week. Read here about the Ismail Haniyeh assassination in Tehran

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 some other western countries.

Sinwar is a local Palestinian who born in 1962, in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis, Palestine, and is around age of 61–62, according to various news sources. At this refugee camp he spent his early life, when it was under Egyptian rule.

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.

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 now after Haniyeh, he is bearing the responsibility of the political face of Hamas the (Palestinian Sunni-Islamic belief centric body that controls the Gaza Strip, a Palestine Resistance Movement.)