Hamas top commander assassinated: Who could become the group's new leader?
The assassination of a top Hamas leader in Iran has thrown into question who will succeed him as the group's figurehead.
News of Ismail Haniyeh's death comes as the war between Israel and the proscribed terror group continues to drag on, with more than 39,000 Palestinians now confirmed dead, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel's air and ground offensive into the Gaza Strip followed Hamas' attack into southern Israel on October 7, which killed some 1,200 people and led to around 250 others being taken hostage.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have also confirmed the death of another key Hamas figure, Mohammed Deif, who was killed in an airstrike on July 13.
Deif, who established the military wing of Hamas, is believed to have been one of the key figures behind the October 7 attack.
Although the death of Haniyeh and Deif will come as a blow to Hamas, a number of its leadership remain alive and in position to assume overall leadership of the group.
Yahya Sinwar
The mastermind of Hamas' October 7 attack is a secretive figure, feared on both sides of the battle lines.
Yahya Sinwar - Hamas' top leader inside the Gaza Strip - is a rarely seen veteran militant who learned fluent Hebrew during his years spent in Israeli prisons.
He was born in 1962 in Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp to a family that was among thousands of Palestinians driven from what is now the city of Ashkelon during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation.
He was an early member of Hamas as it emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987.
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Sinwar convinced the group's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, that to succeed as a resistance organisation, Hamas needed to be purged of spies for Israel. Thus it founded a security arm, then known as Majd, which Sinwar led.
Arrested by Israel in the late 1980s, he admitted under interrogation to having killed 12 suspected collaborators.
He was eventually sentenced to four life terms for offences which included the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers.
While imprisoned he became the leader of hundreds of imprisoned Hamas members, organising strikes to improve conditions as he learned Hebrew and studied Israeli society.
In 2008, Sinwar survived an aggressive form of brain cancer after treatment at a hospital in Tel Aviv.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released him in 2011 along with around 1,000 other prisoners in exchange for Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid.
Upon his return to Gaza, Sinwar closely coordinated between Hamas' political leadership and its military wing, the Qassam Brigades.
In 2017, he was elected head of Hamas' political bureau in Gaza.
Sinwar worked with Haniyeh to realign the group with Iran and its allies, including Lebanon's Hezbollah. He also focused on building Hamas' military power.
He was officially designated as a terrorist by the United States government in September 2015.
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Marwan Issa
Marwan Issa is Deif's deputy commander-in-chief.
Some sources have claimed Issa was named Hamas leader, following the death of Ahmed Jaabari in an Israeli attack in 2012.
However, Issa remains Deif's second-in-command at the the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, while serving as a representative for the Brigades in Hamas' political bureau.
He was detained by Israeli forces during the first Palestinian uprising for five years due to his activity with Hamas.
In 1997, he was arrested again by The Palestinian Authority, but freed after the second intifada in 2000.
Issa was designated as a terrorist by the US in 2019.
Khaled Mashal
One of Hamas' founders, Khaled Mashal, became the leader of the Kuwaiti branch of the organisation in 1987.
In 1992, he was a founding member of Hamas' political bureau and its chairman.
He became the recognised head of Hamas after Israel assassinated both Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, in the spring of 2004.
Under his leadership, Hamas stunned the world by winning a majority of the seats in the Palestinian legislative election in 2006.
Mashal stepped down as Hamas' political bureau chairman at the end of his term limit in 2017.
He has lived in other parts of the Arab world in exile. For that reason, he was considered part of Hamas' "external leadership".
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