Hamas looks to Tehran

Khalil al Hayya is the new leader of Hamas, the first to be officially appointed by the group following the elimination of Yahya Sinwar. He has beaten Khaled Meshal, who had long been waiting for his moment to take command of Hamas, and the rivalry between the two also highlights the ties that the terrorist group wishes to maintain and strengthen in the future. Neither Hayya nor Meshal live in Gaza; like the rest of the leadership, they run everything from outside, from Qatar. However, whilst the latter has remained loyal to Doha, his largest financial backer, the former, like Sinwar, is looking with interest towards Iran, to which the group has become so closely aligned in recent years that it has joined the Shi’ite resistance axis, despite Hamas being Sunni. But the project is political, and for some time now Iran has been seen as a beacon in the struggle against Israel; therefore, al-Hayya’s appointment represents continuity with the events of 7 October, the details of which he was, in fact, aware of.

Choosing a new Hamas leader is never straightforward; the group debates the matter at length until it reaches a consensus, and that consensus has also been that Tehran is a beacon and that interests are currently better represented by the Pasdaran than by the leadership in Doha – which, incidentally, has not abandoned its plans against Israel. But it is Iran that is waging the war, and al-Hayya believes in that plan; with him, the entire group has just pretended to have stepped down from the institutions in the Strip to facilitate the establishment of a technical government that is supposed to oversee Gaza’s future and its reconstruction. However, those in command are those who hold the weapons, and Hamas – which has claimed to have relinquished control of the institutions – has not, in fact, laid down its arms, knowing full well that, according to the law of the strongest, the winner is whoever is best armed. Iran is pleased with this plan; on 7 October, it saw the realisation of the plans that had already been discussed by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Qatar remains Hamas’s main sponsor and certainly has no more peaceful plans regarding relations with Israel, but it is part of the plan for Gaza, having acted as its mediator. Iran is not, and has every intention of sabotaging it.