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Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters form a human chain in front of the crowd gathered near the family home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, where the Hamas militant group prepares to hand over Israeli and Thai hostages to a Red Cross team in Khan Yunis, on January 30, 2025, as part of their third hostage-prisoner exchange..
Hamas: Then & Now
Israel hunted Yahya Sinwar — the Hamas leader and mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack — for over a year. He was hidden deep within Gaza’s shadowy tunnel networks. Surrounded by guards and shielded by hostages, he remained untouchable — until he wasn’t. In Rafah last October, Sinwar was killed not in a targeted operation but during a routine skirmish with a patrol unit. It was only after the smoke cleared that Israeli troops even realized they had taken out their No. 1 enemy.
His death marked a turning point for Hamas, and the leadership role fell to his brother, Mohammed Sinwar, the chief planner behind Gaza’s tunnel infrastructure and Hamas’ former head of logistics and manpower. Six months into his leadership, the question looms: Where does the group stand today?
Then: Under Yahya Sinwar, Hamas operated from a position of relative strength, calculating that the time was right for the group to attack Israel, believing that Iran and Hezbollah would follow suit and that the humanitarian crisis that would inevitably follow in Gaza would only benefit Hamas by spurring international backlash against Israel.
Mohammed Sinwar assumed control of the group at a time of growing weakness. The wider regional response his brother had counted on never materialized. Iran is increasingly focused on domestic stability, and Hezbollah is now badly weakened. And while Israel has faced international criticism for its actions in Gaza, it continues to receive robust military support from key allies like the United States.
Now: Eighteen months into Israel’s ground campaign in Gaza, Hamas is militarily diminished, organizationally disjointed, and politically weak. Since the breakdown of a ceasefire in March, Israeli attacks on the enclave have resumed, and the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis has only deepened amid restricted aid deliveries.
“Hamas is less cohesive than it probably has been at any point in the last decade,” says Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiativeat the Atlantic Council. “There seem to be major shortages in their military arsenal.” Their only remaining leverage, he notes, is the 59 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza – of whom only around 24 are thought to be alive.
Yahya Sinwar was able to seamlessly coordinate between Hamas’ regional allies, its political arm — the Council of Five based in Doha, Qatar — and its fighters on the ground. However, under the leadership of his brother, that cohesion has broken down. Now, the Council, which would be central to any future ceasefire negotiations, is seen as “too far removed politically,” Panikoff says.
“They're not going to be able to control what happens on the ground in Gaza if there’s a disagreement between those on the ground in the strip and the Council.”
Since Hamas came to power in 2007, the group has maintained its grip by controlling access to jobs, presenting itself as the vanguard against Israeli occupation, and, of course, by having a zero-tolerance policy for dissent.
But in recent weeks, public frustration has begun to boil over. As the humanitarian crisis deepens, protests have erupted inside Gaza — most notably in early April, when hundreds of Palestinians marched through Beit Lahia in the North, demanding that Hamas relinquish control and end the war with Israel.
Still, Panikoff cautions against overstating the momentum behind the movement: “At the end of the day, it’s still Hamas that has the guns and the weapons. Even with protests, it’s hard to imagine the people of Gaza being able to mount a meaningful uprising.”
Inside Hamas, however, cracks may be forming. Panikoff notes that some within the lower ranks are ready for the war to end. “After a year and a half of fighting, weapons and ammunition are running low. Resupply from Iran is going to be harder than before. I have no doubt there are many who would prefer that Mohammed Sinwar cut a deal — release the hostages, bring Palestinian prisoners home, and move on.”
But Sinwar himself isn’t signaling that he is ready to listen to them anytime soon. While mediators from Qatar and Egypt put forward a new plan to end the conflict in Gaza last week, it hinges on Hamas relinquishing its arms and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, something that Panikoff says “will probably never be realistic.”
“We’re stuck in this cycle, and I don’t know how you get out of it.”
Buildings lie in ruin in North Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Israel, January 13, 2025.
The “Shadow” atop Hamas: Who is Mohammed Sinwar?
It’s been three months since Israeli forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a Gaza raid. Since then, his younger brother Mohammed has taken the reins.
What is known about him? He is believed to be about 50 and to have been a member of Hamas since his youth. According to reports, he isn’t nearly as familiar to the Israelis as Yahya, who spent decades in Israeli prisons before his 2011 release as part of a hostage swap deal with Hamas. Israeli security officials refer to Mohammed as “the Shadow.”
Why it matters: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to destroy Hamas as a prerequisite for ending the military campaign and allowing the formation of a new Gaza government. Hamas, for obvious reasons, rejects these conditions.
But after 15 months of war – which has reduced Gaza to rubble, displaced some 2 million people, and killed tens of thousands – that goal is elusive. A crippled Hamas remains active, especially in Northern Gaza, which Israel claimed earlier to have rid of the group.
Ceasefire, you say? The waning days of the Biden administration have seen a whirlwind of diplomacy to secure a deal that releases the remaining hostages held by Hamas, but key differences remain over the phasing of a ceasefire and conditions for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. Incoming president Donald Trumphas warned that unless a deal is reached ahead of his inauguration, “all hell will break loose.”
What Sinwar's death means for the war in Gaza
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
BRICS Summit: A "new world order" or already a relic of the past?
Neither. It's in Kazan in Russia. So, I mean, the big issue is that the fact that Putin is hosting it hasn't stopped people from showing up, and that says a lot about the state of the non-West. If you're not in the G7, you're still finding ways to work with the Russians, and that's not going to change anytime soon. But it is not an alternative to the G7. It's a large grouping, and they have different political, different economic systems. They want to work with everybody. So we're not heading towards a new Cold War, at least not in terms of the big global architecture.
Is Sinwar's death the beginning of the end of the war in Gaza?
I think it is in terms of Israel's military fighting, because they've killed the leadership, they've blown up the tunnels, they've found the arms caches. I mean, there's not much else for them to do. But I mean, the war from the Palestinian perspective is just beginning. They are utterly devastated. They have no ability to have a future for themselves or their kids, and they are going to be fighting for generations. So right now, it doesn't matter much to Israel because they're massively asymmetrically powerful from a military perspective, but long-term this is not something that we're going to be able to forget about.
Yankees versus Shohei Ohtani, I mean Dodgers. Who's winning?
Well, I mean, that is funny of course, because here in Japan everyone has Ohtani fever. You cannot avoid it everywhere you walk. It is pretty exciting. They are the two teams that I wanted to see in the World Series, and I think it's going to be a fascinating week and a half or whatever it is. And I wish... I mean, I tend to root for the Red Sox, which means not rooting for the Yankees. That means I kind of want the Dodgers to win. But at the end of the day, I love sports because a minute after the game is over, I am no longer super excited. And I wish that could be the way that politics work.
Anyway, be good and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, waves his hand to the crowd during the celebration of International Quds Day in Gaza City. Iran's leader delivered a historic address to the Palestinian people of Gaza, telling them to stick up to the fighting against Israel in a speech that reflected his country's support for the territory's ruling Hamas militant group. Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, is a commemorative day in support of the Palestinian people held annually on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan by an initiative started by the late founder of the Islamic Republic in Iran.
Can Gaza truce talks survive Hamas’s new political appointee?
Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, its new political leader. Sinwar replaces Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week. By tapping Sinwar, the militant group is moving in an even more hardline direction, raising doubts about a possible cease-fire.
Who is Sinwar? While Haniyeh was considered relatively moderate and open to diplomacy, Sinwar is known as uncompromising, ruthless, and violent. He, along with Mohammed Deif – who Israel claims to have killed – worked to build up the armed wing of Hamas. Believed to be hiding in the underground tunnel network in Gaza, Sinwar was already one of the most influential Hamas figures — and now he has full control over the military and political decisions of Hamas, as well as the fate of Israeli hostages.
Where does this leave negotiations? Even before Haniyeh’s death, any cease-fire agreement required Sinwar’s consent. This has reportedly delayed the process at times, as Sinwar is being actively hunted by Israel and reportedly refuses to use electronic communications (to avoid being found) — making it difficult for him to communicate with negotiators. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been pushing hard for a truce, on Tuesday emphasized that Sinwar has had the final word over a truce deal “for some time.”
Sinwar demands that hundreds of Palestinian prisoners be released and that Israel withdraw fully from Gaza. But he also reportedly wants a permanent cease-fire that secures a historic victory for Hamas. Now that Sinwar has even more power, it gives him an opening to dig in further – to deny Israel a chance to claim victory.
Sinwar’s appointment could also see Israel become less open to reaching a cease-fire, given that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who has vowed to destroy Hamas — refers to him as a “dead man walking.” But the Israeli leader is also facing intense domestic pressure to secure the release of the hostages.
We’ll be watching to see how Sinwar’s appointment impacts talks after months of failed efforts by international mediators.