After Haniyeh’s Death, Who Are Hamas’s Most Prominent Leaders?

Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed on Wednesday in Iran, was among the most senior members of Hamas’s leadership, a group that is tightly coordinated despite being scattered inside and outside Gaza.

Hamas’s leaders, especially those in Gaza, have repeatedly been targets of Israeli assassination attempts, but the group has swiftly replaced those who have been killed.

The group’s leadership structure is often opaque, but here is a look at what we know about some of Hamas’s most prominent leaders who are either believed to be alive or whose fate is unclear.

Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza

Mr. Sinwar helped establish Hamas in the late 1980s around the time of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. He was arrested by the Israeli authorities several times, spending over 20 years in Israeli prison until he was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011.

After rising through Hamas’s ranks, he was elected its leader in Gaza in 2017. Israeli officials said that he was one of the leaders who had masterminded the Oct. 7 attack, alongside Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, and Marwan Issa, the deputy commander, who was killed in an Israeli strike in March. Mr. Sinwar is believed to be hiding in the group’s tunnel network beneath Gaza.

A number of Hamas’s leaders in Gaza, including Mr. Sinwar, are seen as more radical than Mr. Haniyeh, the leader who was killed in Iran. The death of Mr. Haniyeh, who was considered a relatively pragmatic counterpoint, “will make a cease-fire much more difficult to achieve,” said Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.