Who will lead Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh?

Israel’s assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran has left a major gap in the organisation, with much speculation over who will succeed him.

Haniyeh was a Hamas leader for nearly two decades, becoming Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority when Hamas won elections in 2006 and leading a disputed government in Gaza following a 2007 conflict between Hamas and Fatah which ended with the former’s takeover of the territory.

In 2017, Haniyeh moved to Qatar to become head of Hamas’s political bureau after the resignation of Khaled Meshaal, while Yahya Sinwar succeeded him as the organisation’s leader in Gaza.

Haniyeh was a moderate within the organisation, accepting a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

He played a major role in negotiations for a ceasefire with Israel an2d was reportedly willing to free all the hostages held by Hamas to achieve an end to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of the enclave.

Several names have been discussed as potential successors, with the most prominent being Khaled Meshaal, who was the overall leader of the group before 2017.

Khaled Meshaal

Khaled Meshaal, 68, became Hamas’s political leader in exile in 1996. One year later, Israeli agents tried to assassinate him in Jordan by poisoning, but they were captured by Jordanian authorities and Israel had to provide and antidote for the poison to secure the Mossad agents' release.

Israel has assassinated or tried to kill several Hamas leaders and operatives since the group was founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian intifada against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. These include the group’s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, both killed within one month of each other in 2004.

Meshaal then led the group from exile in Syria, but after the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule broke out in 2011, he refused to offer support to the Assad regime and left Syria for Qatar.

This also strained his relations with Iran, a key backer of the Syrian regime, and this became a serious issue within Hamas, which saw Iranian support as crucial. Meshaal found himself eventually marginalised by leaders more willing to work with Iran and normalise ties with its ally Syria.

If Meshaal assumes leadership of Hamas again, he will have to navigate relations with Iran again, as well as convoluted negotiations to end the Gaza war, which has so far killed over 39,000 Palestinians.

Khalil Al-Hayya

Another potential contender for the Hamas leadership is Khalil Al-Hayya. Al-Hayya holds the position of deputy leader of Hamas’s Gaza regional politburo and has played a key role in negotiations before, taking part in talks to end Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza.

He is also considered close to Iran and does not have the same tension with it Meshaal previously had. Al-Hayya was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in the elections Hamas won in 2006. One year later, Israel tried to assassinate him, killing his wife and three children in the process.

He is currently based in Qatar and has led the Hamas delegation participating in indirect talks to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

After the killing of Haniyeh he said: “Hamas and the resistance will continue. Whoever succeeds the leader Haniyeh will follow the same path.”

However, earlier in the Gaza war, Hayya said that Hamas would be willing to disarm if a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict was achieved.

Musa Abu Marzouk

Musa Abu Marzouk is one of the most public faces of Hamas and served as the deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau from 1997 to 2014. Prior to that he lived for 14 years in the United States.

In 2012, Abu Marzouk became the first Hamas leader to give an interview to a Jewish publication – the US-based newspaper Forward.

In 2017, he promoted a new policy document for the group that did away with some of the extreme language found in Hamas’s original 1988 founding charter.

After the 2023 surprise Hamas attack on Israel, Abu Marzouk told The New Yorker that while he and other political leaders of the group had no foreknowledge of the attack, it had come after the group had “tried every path” to achieve a negotiated solution to Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory.