Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as successor to former senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week, shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warmly received visit to the United States. Sinwar helped to found the precursor to Hamas’s current militant wing and is believed to have orchestrated the organization’s October 7 attack on Israel. As the region braces for a retaliatory attack on Israel from Iran, we speak to Jeremy Scahill, whose latest piece for Drop Site News details Hamas’s account of the assassination, and look at how Haniyeh’s death and Sinwar’s ascension may affect Hamas’s next moves and the course of the nearly yearlong conflict in Gaza.
