Hamas appointed new commanders to high positions after Israel assassinated several of its leaders; this time, they concealed their names to prevent assassination.
Israel launched a fierce offensive in Gaza that has severely crippled the movement and reduced most of the region to ruins after vowing to defeat Hamas in retribution for the October 7 attack.
A number of other commanders and political officials have also been slain, including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 operation, Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s armed wing, and political chief Ismail Haniyeh.
Yet unlike its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, whose cult of personality around its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah was a key pillar of its identity, Hamas has placed less of an emphasis on its top ranks.
The group has remained tight-lipped over the names of its top ranks, particularly the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades.
“The name of the head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades will remain a secret,” said a source close to Hamas’s armed wing.
Researchers say it is likely that the role was inherited by Yahya Sinwar’s younger brother Mohammed, whom Hamas put in charge of the hostages taken into Gaza in 2023.
“Yahya Sinwar’s personality was rather unique” and militants viewed him as a “hero”, said Laetitia Bucaille, who teaches political sociology at the INALCO institute of Middle East studies in Paris.
Mohammed Sinwar’s blood link to the slain commander, coupled with his own experience in the brigades, have conferred upon him an automatic authority, she said.
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