Described by the Israeli agents who interrogated him for hours in prison as “extremely intelligent“, Yahya Sinwarthe mastermind behind the October 7 attacks, was elected Tuesday as the new top political leader of Hamas, a group that in reality already ruled from the shadows within the Gaza Strip.

Sinwar will take the reins of Hamas’ political bureau, replacing Ismail Haniyehkilled a week ago in Tehran in an attack attributed to Israel, after exercising an iron fist as the group’s leader within the enclave since 2017.

In that position, Sinwar was technically the ‘number two‘ of the group – only behind Haniyeh who lived in Qatar and was in charge of diplomatic relations – but he was the one who really controlled the important decisions of the group, combining power in the political and military branches.

His election, against all expectations, to head the political bureau confirms the strategic change of the group that he himself promoted from within Gaza, where the military wing has swallowed up the political wing. In fact, it was the military wing – represented by him and Mohamed Deif – that planned the attack on October 7, and the political wing, including Haniyeh, only found out about it when the plan was well underway.

Sinwar has also been the one who had the last word, always with tough positions, in the talks to achieve a ceasefire, which failed for the umpteenth time last week, although Haniyeh, of a more pragmatic and diplomaticacted as chief negotiator.

Both the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahuas military leaders, have referred to Sinwar since the war began as a “dead man walking“But the Islamist leader has eluded capture on several occasions since October, moving like a fish in water through the group’s vast network of underground tunnels. In December, the army even offered $400,000 to Gazans who report his whereabouts, in leaflets dropped by air in both Gaza and Khan Yunis, where troops surrounded one of his residences, with no sign of him.

Hamas’s Most Wanted

He is the most wanted Hamas member, for which they have offered the most money, only followed by Mohamed Deifmilitary chief of the al-Qassam Brigades – the armed wing of Hamas – who was killed by Israel in an attack in Mawasi on July 13. Little is known about him since the start of the war.

The hostage Yocheved LifshitzThe 85-year-old, who was released two weeks after her captivity, said Sinwar visited several hostages held in a tunnel a few days after the attack and told them in fluent Hebrew that they were safe there.

Israeli authorities have no doubt that Yahya Sinwar, who represents Hamas’s hardline and belligerent line, was the one who planned the attack in Israel, a country and society that he has studied in detail, aided by his mastery of Hebrew, which he learned during his nearly 23 years in an Israeli prison.

“He is a very intelligent person “He invested in his intellectual development and a deep understanding of Israeli society,” said Betty Lahat, a former director of the Hasharon prison where Sinwar was held. He was sentenced to four life terms by Israel in 1989 for plotting the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian “collaborators” at the head of Hamas’s security services, but was released in 2011 as part of a swap of 1,047 Palestinian prisoners for the return of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Born in Khan Yunisa bastion of Palestinian support for the Muslim Brotherhood organization, Sinwar was first arrested by Israel in 1982, aged 19, for “Islamic activities“, during which time he gained the trust of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Two years after Hamas was founded in 1987, Sinwar created the group’s feared internal security division, Al Majdguardian of the “Islamic morality“and the scourge of anyone suspected of collaborating with Israel. According to Israeli officials who interrogated him in prison, Sinwar proudly confessed to having killed 12 collaborators with his own hands and during his time in prison he demonstrated his leadership skills with a mix of magnetism and instilling fear.