Gaza / Anadolu

The "Hamas" movement announced on Monday the election of its leader Khalil al-Hayya as head of its political bureau.

The movement said in a brief statement that "Khalil al-Hayya was elected head of the movement's political bureau, succeeding the martyred leader Yahya Sinwar."

Khalil al-Hayya is one of the most prominent figures in "Hamas", and he assumed leadership of the movement in Gaza in October 2024 after Israel assassinated Yahya Sinwar, having previously been his deputy.

Al-Hayya came into greater focus after a series of Israeli assassinations targeted top-tier leaders of the movement, including Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Saleh al-Arouri, and he has come to be seen as the most prominent potential candidate to lead it politically and organizationally.

He also headed the Office of Arab and Islamic Relations in the last term of the movement's elections in 2021.

Al-Hayya was born in 1960, earned a PhD in "Prophetic Sunnah and Hadith Sciences" from the University of the Holy Quran in Sudan in 1997, and was elected as a deputy in the Palestinian Legislative Council for Gaza City in 2006.

His son Hamza, a field commander in the "Al-Qassam Brigades", was killed in 2008 during clashes with the Israeli army east of Gaza City.

Also, 8 of his relatives, including several of his brothers and their children, were killed during an Israeli assassination attempt against him on May 20, 2007, when the al-Hayya family guesthouse east of the city was bombed.

Several family members were killed during the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza, ongoing since October 7, 2023.