Key takeaways:
- Khalil al-Hayya won Hamas’s leadership vote after a run-off against former political leader Khaled Meshaal.
- Al-Hayya was Hamas’s chief negotiator in indirect ceasefire talks and was based mainly in Qatar.
- The Gaza war has killed more than 73,280 people, including 1,158 since the ceasefire began, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Hamas has elected Khalil al-Hayya as its new overall leader, choosing a veteran Gaza figure and chief negotiator to succeed Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the Israeli military in October 2024.
The Palestinian armed group said Monday that al-Hayya, a former deputy chairman and member of its temporary leadership council, won an internal ballot after a run-off against former political leader Khaled Meshaal. The BBC reported that the first round was inconclusive, with Meshaal narrowly ahead but short of the 36 votes needed from Hamas’s 69-member electoral college, before al-Hayya prevailed in a second-round, first-past-the-post vote.
Al-Hayya, 65, had already headed Hamas in Gaza from exile and recently took on greater responsibility for the group’s diplomatic and political strategy. As Hamas’s chief negotiator, he led delegations in indirect ceasefire talks through mediators in Egypt and Qatar and was the group’s chief negotiator when a ceasefire agreement with Israel was reached in October 2025. The deal has not stopped frequent deadly attacks in Gaza.
His election follows a year in which Hamas lost several senior figures. Sinwar and military commander Mohammed Deif were killed in Gaza in 2024, while Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated during a visit to Tehran the same year. After those deaths, al-Hayya became one of five leaders on a temporary ruling committee formed in late 2024.
Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, al-Hayya has been part of Hamas since it was founded in 1987 and was elected to the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. Based mainly in Qatar, he became central to the movement’s diplomacy, coordinating with mediators and foreign governments including Israel, Egypt and the United States.
Al-Hayya has survived at least two Israeli attempts to kill him. In September 2025, an Israeli air strike targeted a meeting of Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar. He survived, but five lower-level Hamas members, including one of his sons, were killed, along with a member of Qatar’s security forces, the BBC reported. Israel’s prime minister said at the time that the leaders were targeted because they had organized the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Al-Hayya’s family has been repeatedly hit in Israeli attacks. Four of his children have been killed over the years. During the 2014 war, an Israeli strike destroyed the home of his eldest son, Osama, who was killed along with his wife and three children. The BBC reported that another of al-Hayya’s sons was killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza in May.
The leadership vote exposed competing views inside Hamas, according to the BBC. Meshaal’s supporters argued for a more pragmatic political approach while maintaining the group’s core objectives. Al-Hayya’s backers said Gaza’s leadership, having endured the conflict, should guide the movement and resist major concessions, especially on disarmament.
Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States and many other countries, has refused to give up its weapons without what it calls a guaranteed political path to Palestinian self-determination and statehood. It has also rejected plans from the U.S.-led Board of Peace that prioritize immediate demilitarization over reconstruction, and says it lacks security guarantees against continuing Israeli attacks and rival armed groups.
About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,280 people, including 1,158 since the ceasefire began, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
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