Senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya, who was one of the targets of Israeli strike in Doha, has become an increasingly central figure of the militant group.
The Tuesday’s strike on Hamas leadership in Qatar was aimed at eliminating top Hamas leaders including Al-Hayya, its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator, Reuters reported quoting Israeli officials.
Hamas’ ceasefire negotiation delegation in Doha survived the attack, two Hamas sources told Reuters.
Al-Hayya has been a crucial figure in the Palestinian group and enjoys support, especially after Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s political chief at-large, and Ismail Haniyeh were killed last year.
As talks for negotiation continued during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that erupted nearly two years ago, Hayya, who was a part of a five-man leadership council that led the militant group since Sinwar was killed in Gaza, is seen as Hamas’ most influential figure abroad.
Hamas and Hayya
Born in 1960 in the Gaza Strip, the veteran member of the Islamic militant group lost many of his close relatives to Israeli attacks on the area including his eldest son, and had been detained several times by Israel.
Hayya has been an integral part of Hamas since its formation in 1987. In the early 1980s, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood – the Sunni Islamist movement from which Hamas emerged – along with Haniyeh and Sinwar, Reuters quoted Hamas sources as saying.
An Israeli air strike that hit Gaza City’s Sejaiyeh quarter in 2007, killed many relatives of Hayya’s. The final blow was dealt during the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas during which his eldest son, Osama, his wife and his three children were bombed.
Al-Hayya was not present in Gaza during the attacks as he served as a Hamas point person for ties with the Arab and Islamic worlds and based himself in Qatar, leaving his country behind several years ago.
Regarded as having good ties with Iran, a vital source of arms and finance for Hamas, he has been closely involved in the group’s efforts to broker several truces with Israel, playing a key role in ending a 2014 conflict and again in attempts to secure an end to the current Gaza war.
When Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July 2024, he was present with him as both had travelled to Tehran.
Al-Hayya had also led Hamas’ delegations in mediated talks with Israel to try to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal that would have included an exchange of Israelis abducted by Hamas for Palestinians in Israeli jails.
Additonally, the Hamas leader performed other high-profile political work for Hamas. In 2022, he led a Hamas delegation to Damascus to mend ties with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which were broken a decade earlier when the movement endorsed the largely Sunni uprising against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, the report added.
The breach had strained a regional alliance built by Iran to counter Israel and the United States.
October 7 attacks
The October 7 attacks that ignited the Gaza war had been meant as a limited operation by Hamas to capture “a number of soldiers” to swap for jailed Palestinians, Al-Hayya was reportedly cited as saying.
On October 7, 2023, militants hailing from Hamas killed nearly 1,200 people and abducted another 250 on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli tolls.
“But the Zionist army unit completely collapsed,” he said in comments published by the Hamas-linked Palestinian Information Center, referring to Israel’s military.
After the attack, Al-Hayya said that it succeeded in bringing the Palestinian issue back into international focus.
More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza since then, according to the Gaza health ministry.
(With inputs from Reuters)
