Who are Hamas’s top leaders? What to know about Yehiya Sinwar.

Yehiya Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas’s political bureau, is known by Israelis as the “Butcher of Khan Younis,” his hometown in southern Gaza.

Sinwar spent two decades in an Israeli prison for orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers. He speaks fluent Hebrew and is considered to have a deep understanding of Israel. He was released from prison in 2011 as part of a large prisoner swap that involved the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Sinwar replaced Haniyeh as the head of Hamas in Gaza in 2017 and is known for helping to establish the group’s military wing. He previously undertook counterintelligence work for Hamas, targeting spies and informants within the group.

He is believed to be one of the few Hamas leaders who planned the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and is thought to be hiding in or around Khan Younis in tunnels, said Jonathan Lord, a senior fellow and director of the Middle East security program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

The scale of Oct. 7 can be attributed to Sinwar’s methodical approach to creating the plan and communicating about in a “very analog way,” Lord said. Sinwar, he added, kept discussions off devices that could be tapped by Israeli intelligence and kept the circle of those who knew about the attack “very small.”

In picking Sinwar to lead, Hamas has chosen “the option of extremism closest to Iran,” Ahmed Awad, head of the Center for Future Studies at al-Quds University in Ramallah, told The Washington Post. It “means that Gaza will be a decision-maker in the region,” he said.

Haniyeh was the head of Hamas’s political operations and conducted much of his work from the Qatari capital of Doha. His role, according to analysts, was to be the public face of Hamas, spread the group’s political rhetoric and raise money to fund its operations. He had been under U.S. economic sanctions since 2018.

Haniyeh was involved in the cease-fire negotiations with Israel through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, although the two sides struggled to reach an agreement.

Several of Haniyeh’s close family members, including three of his sons, at least two of his grandchildren, and his sister and her family, were killed by Israeli airstrikes in recent months.

With the political and military leaders of Hamas kept separate — geographically and organizationally — it is unclear to what extent political leaders such as Haniyeh knew about the Oct. 7 attack.

Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, following an election to determine who would preside over the enclave after Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005. No elections have been held since 2006. Haniyeh was chosen by members of the group to be president of its political bureau in 2017.

Hamas said Haniyeh was killed on July 31 as he visited Tehran for the inauguration of its new president, and that he was killed by a missile that targeted him in the state guesthouse where he was staying.

Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif), a shadowy figure who rarely spoke or appeared in public, had led the al-Qassam Brigades for more than two decades. Israel targeted Deif in an operation July 13 in the Mawasi area of southern Gaza. At least 90 people were killed in the operation, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

“We can now confirm: Mohammed Deif was eliminated,” the Israel Defense Forces wrote on X Thursday. It said his death was confirmed “after an intelligence assessment.”

Not much is known about Deif. He was born in Khan Younis in 1965 and became a founding member of the al-Qassam Brigades in 1991, rising through the ranks to eventually lead the organization after its chief commander was killed in 2002.

Deif had survived multiple attempts on his life over the years. Israel has said he was one of the “masterminds” of the Oct. 7 attacks, without providing details about his role.

“He’s a legend,” a member of a Hamas security detail told The Washington Post of Deif in 2014. Imad Falouji, a former senior Hamas leader, also told The Post then that Deif kept a low profile, moving around with “different passports and different identities.”

Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing and a right-hand man to Deif, was killed in an Israeli strike in central Gaza in March, the White House confirmed.

“Hamas’s number three, Marwan Issa, was killed in an Israeli operation,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at the time. “The rest of the top leaders are in hiding, likely deep in the Hamas tunnel network. And justice will come for them, too. We are helping to ensure that.”

Issa was believed to have run many of Hamas’s day-to-day operations, said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. With Deif spending much of his life incognito, Issa helped run logistical operations for the al-Qassam Brigades. Israel considered Issa a very significant threat, Byman added.

Mohammed Sinwar is the right-hand man to his brother, Yehiya Sinwar. Although he has long been rumored to have been killed, the IDF has indicated recently that he is alive. It said in early November that it had raided Mohammed’s office, where it said it found “military doctrine documents.” In December, the IDF also released what it said was video of Mohammed in a car inside a Gaza tunnel.

If Israel assassinates the Sinwar brothers and Deif, it could “find a way to declare victory” and end the war in Gaza, Lord, the analyst, said.

Once the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal is now in charge of the group’s diaspora office, cultivating support for Hamas abroad, including among Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon.

After the Oct. 7 attack and the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, Meshal called for protests in Muslim nations, saying in a recorded statement, “This is a moment of truth and the borders are close to you; you all know your responsibility.”

Meshal survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 1997. The attempted killing, in the Jordanian capital of Amman, threw Jordan’s relations with Israel into disarray. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also prime minister in 1997, ordered the poisoning, U.S. and Israeli officials said at the time. Meshal survived after officials from the United States and Jordan demanded that Israel give him the antidote.

He has said the assassination attempt was a pivotal moment in his life, calling it his second birth.

Saleh Arouri, who was second-in-command of Hamas’s political wing, was killed in a Beirut suburb on Jan. 2. Hezbollah, the Iranian-aligned militant and political group in Lebanon that has engaged in skirmishes with Israel, said Arouri was killed by a drone armed with three rockets. Hezbollah said Israel was to blame for the attack, but Israel has not claimed responsibility for the killing.

Arouri had been imprisoned in Israel on multiple occasions and was a founder of the al-Qassam Brigades. Israel accused him in 2014 of planning the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers, triggering an Israeli response in Gaza that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians.

Arouri’s death in Beirut sent a signal to Hamas leaders outside Gaza that they were not immune to the risk of assassination.

Miriam Berger, Loveday Morris, Andrew Jeong, Victoria Bisset, Sarah Dadouch, Steve Hendrix, Claire Parker, Adam Taylor and Sudarsan Raghavan contributed to this report.