Hamas has elected Khalil al-Hayya as the new chairman of its Political Bureau. This means that one of the terrorist organization’s most prominent figures is assuming its highest political office. Al-Hayya succeeds Yahya Sinwar, one of the key planners of the Oct 7, 2023, massacre, who was killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in October 2024. Since Sinwar’s death, Hamas had been led by a transitional committee headed by Mohammed Darwish.
The organization announced the decision via Telegram. In its statement, it referred to al-Hayya as a “brother and fighter” and continued to refer to Sinwar as a martyr. This choice of words alone leaves no doubt as to the path Hamas intends to take: It is not distancing itself from the terror of Oct 7, but rather elevating to its leadership a man who publicly glorified the massacre.
In recent years, Khalil al-Hayya has become best known as Hamas’s chief negotiator. He has led indirect talks on ceasefires, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners, and the release of Israeli hostages. He has often appeared from Qatar or during talks in Egypt. His role as a negotiator has led some in the international community to believe that al-Hayya belongs to the political or supposedly more moderate wing of the organization.
This impression is false.
Al-Hayya did not negotiate as an opponent of terrorism, but as a representative of the organization that attacked Israeli families on Oct 7, murdered people in their homes, and abducted 251 people as hostages to the Gaza Strip. In January 2025, he described the massacre in a televised address as a military success and a source of pride to be passed on to future generations. At the same time, he made it clear that Hamas would continue its struggle against Israel.
In doing so, al-Hayya did not speak of Oct 7 as a tragic mistake or as a situation that had spiraled out of control. He presented the largest mass murder of Jews since the Shoah as a model for the future.
The fact that the same man later negotiated over hostages did not make him a peacemaker. It made him the custodian of those people whom his organization was holding as leverage. Hamas did not engage in talks because it recognized the suffering of the hostages, but because every Israeli in its custody, whether alive or dead, held political, military, and propaganda value.
Al-Hayya understood this power. He was able to present himself to the outside world as a negotiating partner while simultaneously defending Hamas’s ideology of terror internally. This combination of ideological rigidity and tactical flexibility was likely decisive for his rise to power.
Now 65 years old, he has been a member of Hamas’s leadership for decades. A native of the Gaza Strip, he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on behalf of the organization in 2006 and later assumed leadership roles in the regional political bureau. In recent years, he has lived and worked primarily in Qatar, from where he has cultivated Hamas’s relations with Arab states, mediators, and international counterparts.
At the same time, he is regarded as a representative with close ties to Iran, which has provided Hamas with money, military expertise, and political support for years. Al-Hayya was never merely a spokesperson or diplomat. He was one of the figures who linked Hamas’s political leadership with its military and regional strategy.
His rise was accelerated by the deaths of numerous high-ranking terrorist leaders. Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in July 2024, and Sinwar was killed a few months later in the Gaza Strip. Other members of the political and military leadership died in Israeli attacks. Al-Hayya, however, survived several attempts on his life, including the Israeli attack on the Hamas leadership in Doha in September 2025.
