Hamas’ new political leader Yahya Sinwar seen as more extreme

Hamas on Tuesday appointed Yahya Sinwar as the leader of its political wing following the assassination of its former political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

This makes Sinwar — a man known for his ruthlessness who is widely seen as having masterminded the Oct. 7 attack — the most powerful person in the organization and its face in international diplomacy.

“The most extreme part of Hamas carried out October 7 … and is now officially in power,” Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical analyst and head of intel at risk management firm Le Beck International, wrote in a post on X.

The Middle East has been on edge following the killing of Haniyeh in Iran on July 31, which Iran and Hamas blamed on Israel. Israel has stayed silent on the matter, while Iran has pledged to carry out some form of retaliatory attack on the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Haniyeh’s killing has resulted in a much more extreme leader for Hamas, likely setting the Palestinian militant group in a direction that bodes poorly for ceasefire talks aimed at ending the war and freeing the Israeli hostages still captive in Gaza.

Haniyeh, based in Qatar, was Hamas’ lead negotiator in the cease-fire talks with Israel and was described as being more pragmatic and supportive of a deal. While the negotiations have been ongoing for months with no success, Sinwar — who is based inside Gaza and is said to have the last word on Hamas’ major decisions — often stalls or cuts off communications during the talks.

“Sinwar’s nomination for Hamas’ top job – despite his being based in Gaza – prefaces a significant hardening of the movement’s stance, particularly with regard to cease-fire talks,” Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst at consulting firm Control Risks, told CNBC.

The Palestinian leader “already had a very significant say in negotiations with Israel, but the difference now is that there will not be the comparatively pragmatic voice of Ismail Haniyeh to balance Sinwar’s uncompromising maximalist views.”

Still, his nomination is unlikely to change the dynamics of the ground war in Gaza, as killing him remains a top priority for Israel, Tricaud said. But it does deal a blow to the efforts to achieve a lasting halt in fighting and regional de-escalation; the analyst expects “heightened instability in the region to persist for several more months.”

Sinwar, 61, was born in a refugee camp in Gaza and spent at least 22 years of his adult life in Israeli prisons. He had been sentenced to life in 1989 for directing the killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians that he believed to be collaborators, having already made a name for himself as “the Butcher of Khan Yunis” for his hunting down of Palestinians he suspected to be working with Israel.

He was released…