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From the comfort of Doha, Hamas’s political leaders have been negotiating the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Others who live in Beirut under the patronage of Hezbollah sporadically brief the press. And yet according to at least four Israeli and Arab officials the key players are Hamas’s military leaders inside the Gaza Strip itself.
From the comfort of Doha, Hamas’s political leaders have been negotiating the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Others who live in Beirut under the patronage of Hezbollah sporadically brief the press. And yet according to at least four Israeli and Arab officials the key players are Hamas’s military leaders inside the Gaza Strip itself.
Every time there is a communication blackout in Gaza, negotiations for hostage release are set back, a Qatari official aware of the negotiations told Foreign Policy. While the political leadership in exile has a say in the ongoing hostage negotiations, two of the group’s more extremist leaders based in Gaza seem to have an upper hand.
Mohammed Deif, the chief commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, or the military wing of Hamas, and Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader of the Gaza Strip and the man who helped form the brigade in 1991 to oppose the Oslo Accords with Israel, are the architects of Oct. 7 attack, and the top authorities laying down conditions for hostage release. For instance, the demand during negotiations that Israel stop flying its intelligence gathering drones was insisted upon by Hamas so the position of the men holding the hostages wasn’t exposed.
“They show us a united front,’’ an Arab source briefed on the matter said “but like in any war, anywhere, the military wing has more sway.’’ Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), said that, while Hamas still works through consensus, the military leadership is the dominant voice. “The al-Qassam brigade physically holds hostages so they are the ultimate power brokers,’’ he told FP, “but not the only ones.’’
Sinwar, 61, and Deif, 58, were both born in Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza, the current headquarters of Hamas according to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. “They are probably hiding in Khan Younis and that’s likely where the bulk of hostages are held,’’ Eran Lerman, Israel’s deputy national security advisor between 2006 and 2015, told FP over the phone.
“With all due respect to the fat cats in Qatar, these are the guys who are calling the shots,’’ on hostage release. “These are very dangerous men,’’ he added pointing to suicide bombings and abductions carried out in Israel on the orders of Sinwar and Deif, both of whom have been designated as global terrorists by the United States.
There are many questions around the men who patiently schemed and planned the attack for at least two years. A look into their past, and of the organization they represent, offers an insight into their motivation and aims, and perhaps even explains the specific brutality displayed on Oct. 7.
An offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas was formed after the outbreak of the first intifada, or uprising, in 1987 and never recognized the existence of Israel. It was opposed to peace talks and violently pushed out Fatah from Gaza in 2007, albeit after winning an election. Over the years some of Hamas’s senior leaders were chased out of Gaza or chose to live elsewhere but soon enough they became unacceptable to their Arab hosts.
In 1999, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan suspected Hamas of fomenting trouble and kicked them out. They moved to Syria next. But that didn’t last. In 2012, the group sided with Syrian rebels in the civil war and fell out of favor with the autocratic Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Since then, Doha has been the hub of the political leadership and hosts Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, and senior leader Khaled Mashal, among others. Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy of the political bureau, and the group’s spokesperson Osama Hamdan, reside in Beirut. All these years while the leadership in exile spent its days comfortably, or luxuriously, depending on where they are, Sinwar and Deif roughed it out on the ground, often under the ground, to escape Israeli missiles.
Deif is the nom de guerre of Mohammed al-Masri, who has escaped seven assassination attempts by the Israel Defense Forces, which has earned him the reputation of local hero. “Put the sword before the sword, we are the men of Mohammed Deif,’’ is a popular protest slogan in occupied territories, while the man himself is often described as “the cat with nine lives.’’
When asked why Israeli spies and forces have repeatedly failed in finding Deif, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus told FP, “because he is very careful, very disciplined, willing to sacrifice comfort, family and pleasantries of life.’’ Lerman, however, attributed his survival to “sheer luck.’’ Lerman said that once Deif “crawled out of a bombed building,’’ and another time the IDF had to abandon the operation to assassinate him out of the fear of causing too much collateral damage, “another very lucky escape.’’
His 7-month-old son, 3-year-old daughter, and wife, however, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2014. Some experts believe that to some extent Deif is formed by his personal experiences, that led him to plan an attack that involved killing anyone who came in the way, including children.
“He was the brain behind the (Oct. 7) attack, in cooperation and dialogue with Sinwar,’’ Lovatt of the ECFR said. “Very little is known about him so there is a risk of overanalyzing but what we do know is that he is a hardliner and has personally suffered tremendously in the past.’’ Deif lost his family and some of his limbs were reportedly amputated in Israeli strikes. “That personal history has affected how he views the course of Palestinian liberation and clearly fed into the way how he approached October 7.’’
Deif is the most secretive leader of the organization with just three known photos: In one he is masked, another is from ages ago when he was in his 20s, and the third is a silhouette that was last seen on a Hamas channel shortly after the attack when his audio message was aired. “If you have a gun, get it out,’’ he said in the audio recording. “This is the time to use it. Get out with trucks, cars, axes. Today the best and most honorable history starts.”
Thus far, Deif has failed in provoking an all-out Palestinian uprising and the response from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen has been ceremonial, smashing any plans to turn this into a regional war. But he has succeeded in redefining Hamas, not a governing body responsible for the welfare of Gazans but an armed revolutionary force dedicated to fighting Israel.
According to a survey conducted in Gaza by Arab Barometer, a research network, days before the attack as many as 75 percent respondents said they ran out of food over the last 30 days and didn’t have enough money to purchase more. Two years ago, 51 percent made the same claim. But as Gaza’s people were going hungry, Deif and Sinwar only pretended to be concerned. They quietly trained their men and planned the attack while fooling the Israeli authorities that they had no appetite for war and were, instead, concerned about Gaza’s economic issues.
“Sinwar sat in Israeli jails for years. He knew us from the inside,’’ Lerman said. “He misled us and hinted he was willing to work out a relationship, a quid pro quo, goods for Gaza and working permits’’ for the people of Gaza to work inside Israel.
Sinwar was among the 1,027 Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for one Israeli soldier in 2011. That experience perhaps convinced him that taking Israeli hostages was the surest way of seeking a prisoner swap. Israel has agreed to release three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage abducted in the October attack, and experts believe the return of Palestinians to their homes all over the occupied territories will earn Deif, Sinwar and the al-Qassam Brigades more fans. Arab officials believe large-scale killings in Gaza are likely to have the same effect.
“In the next 10 years, the children orphaned in this conflict are not going to be pacifists,’’ an Arab official told FP on the condition of anonymity. “With every generation we see Hamas’s leaders are getting more extremist. Khaled Mashal was a moderate, Haniyeh is more extreme, Sinwar and Deif are even more extreme. As long as we are in a bad cycle on the ground this can be expected. The only way to combat this is to provide real solutions, right now there is none.’’
The survey by Arab Barometer found that a majority of the people in Gaza were frustrated with Hamas’s ineffective governance and preferred a two-state solution. Forty-four percent said they had no trust in Hamas at all, however, the group added that according to its research, every time Israel cracks down on Gaza there is an upswing in Hamas’s appeal.
The long-term impact of the attack on the Palestinian cause remains unclear, but some Palestinians feel it has brought Palestine back into news and made the world pay attention. Ali Jarbawi, a former minister of the Palestinian Authority, said the world can no longer ignore the Palestinian struggle. “I ask you, who was talking about the Palestinian freedom before the attack?’’ No one. Are we talking about it now? Why are the Americans talking about the two-state solution now?’’
But for many others, particularly in the West, the brutality of Hamas’s attack has made it hard for them to see the group as a resistance force or even a militant group. When it barged in people’s bedrooms and shot them dead it resembled more as a terrorist organization. That too is the legacy of Sinwar and Deif, the duo that the IDF has vowed to find and kill, but not just them.
“All Hamas leaders, inside and outside Gaza, are dead men walking,’’ Conricus, the IDF spokesman, added with an air of confidence. “Either we will get our hands on them or our missiles will find them, wherever they are,’’ he said, alluding to assassinations on foreign soil that has historically earned Mossad its reputation. “It is just a matter of time.’’
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