Khalil al-Haya, the senior Hamas official who was the target of yesterday's Israeli attack in Qatar, has become an increasingly influential figure in the Palestinian militant group's leadership since both Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar were killed last year.
Israeli officials told Reuters that the attack targeted Hamas' top brass, including Haya, the group's exiled head in Gaza and chief negotiator. Two Hamas sources confirmed to Reuters that the group's delegation to the Doha ceasefire talks had survived the attack.
At the center of ceasefire negotiations during the war that broke out two years ago, Haya was largely considered Hamas's most influential figure abroad after Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran in July 2024.
He is part of the five-member council that has governed Hamas since Sinwar was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza last October.
Originally from the Gaza Strip, Haya lost several close relatives, including his eldest son, in Israeli attacks on Gaza and is a long-time member of the Islamist group.
He is believed to have good relations with Iran, a key source of weapons and financial support for Hamas, and has been closely involved in the group's efforts to broker multiple ceasefires with Israel, playing a key role in ending the 2014 conflict, as well as in attempts to secure an end to the current war in Gaza.
Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, Haya has been part of Hamas since its founding in 1987. In the early XNUMXs, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sunni Islamist movement from which Hamas emerged, along with Haniyeh and Sinwar, according to Hamas sources.
He was detained several times by Israel in Gaza.
An Israeli airstrike in 2007 hit his family home in Gaza City, killing several of his relatives, and during the 2014 Hamas-Israel war, the home of Haj's eldest son Osama was bombed, killing him, his wife, and their three children.
Haja was not present at the time. He left Gaza several years ago, taking on the role of Hamas' representative for relations with the Arab and Islamic world, a position he took up in Qatar.
Haya accompanied Haniyeh on a visit to Tehran in July, during which Haniyeh was assassinated.
Haya was quoted as saying that the October 7 attacks, which ignited the war in Gaza, were intended as a limited Hamas operation aimed at capturing “a few soldiers” for exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
“But the Zionist military unit has completely disintegrated,” he said in statements published by the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Information Center, referring to the Israeli army.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1.200 people and kidnapped another 250 during the attack on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Since then, more than 64.000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Haja said the attack succeeded in bringing the Palestinian issue back to the center of international attention.
He led Hamas delegations in negotiations with Israel to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, which would include the exchange of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
He has also held other significant political positions for Hamas. In 2022, he led a Hamas delegation to Damascus to repair relations with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which had been severed a decade earlier when the movement supported a largely Sunni uprising against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect.
With yesterday's fierce attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar, Israel expanded its military actions, which have stretched across the Middle East, to the Gulf Arab state where the Palestinian Islamist group has long had a political base. "Today's action against the top terrorist leaders of Hamas was a completely independent Israeli operation. Israel initiated it, Israel carried it out and Israel takes full responsibility," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, adding that the attack was justified.
The attack came shortly after Hamas' armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed six people at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday.
Qatar, which along with Egypt brokered ceasefire talks in the nearly two-year war in Gaza, condemned the action as "cowardly" and called it a "flagrant violation of international law."
"While the State of Qatar condemns this attack in the strongest terms, it confirms that it will not tolerate this irresponsible Israeli behavior and continued violation of regional security, nor any act that threatens its security and sovereignty," Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari posted on the X network.
The attack was also condemned by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said it represented a "flagrant violation of Qatar's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
Turkey said the attack on the Hamas negotiating delegation, while ceasefire talks are ongoing, shows that Israel “has no intention of achieving peace, but of continuing the war.” According to the country’s Foreign Ministry, it is clear evidence that Israel has adopted “an expansionist policy in the region and is using terrorism as an instrument of state policy.”
Pope Leo, who usually avoids speaking without preparation, expressed unusually strong concern yesterday about the consequences of the Israeli attack in Qatar. “At this moment we have really serious news: an Israeli attack on some Hamas leaders in Qatar,” the head told reporters outside his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. “The whole situation is very serious,” the pope said. “We don’t know how things will develop. It is really serious.”
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