Hamas to be led by ruling committee, no chief to succeed Sinwar

Hamas moving towards appointing Doha-based ruling committee instead of single successor to late chief Yahya Sinwar.

Two Hamas sources said the Palestinian militant group was moving towards appointing a Doha-based ruling committee rather than a single successor to its chief Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli troops last week.

"The Hamas leadership's approach is not to appoint a successor to the late chief, the martyr Yahya Sinwar, until their next elections" scheduled for March "if conditions permit", a well-informed source from the group told AFP.

A five-member committee that was formed in August following the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran "will take over the leadership of the group", the source added.

The committee was formed to facilitate decision-making in view of the difficulty of communicating with Sinwar in Gaza before his death.

Sinwar was named the Gaza chief of the militant group in 2017, before rising to become the overall leader of Hamas after Haniyeh was assassinated in July.

The source said the committee is made up of representatives of the two Palestinian territories and the diaspora, namely Khalil al-Hayya for Gaza, Zaher Jabarin for the West Bank and Khaled Meshaal for Palestinians abroad.

It also includes the head of Hamas's Shura advisory council Mohammed Darwish and the secretary of the political bureau, who is never identified for security reasons.