Israel Fails to Assassinate Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’ Voice Abroad

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Khalil al-Hayya, the senior Hamas leader targeted on Tuesday by an Israeli strike in Qatar, has emerged as a central figure in the movement’s leadership following the deaths of Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar last year.

Israeli officials told Reuters that the attack was aimed at several of Hamas’ top leaders, including al-Hayya, head of the movement’s political bureau in Gaza and its chief negotiator. Two sources confirmed to Reuters that Hamas’ delegation engaged in ceasefire talks in Doha had survived the strike.

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Al-Hayya, who played a pivotal role in ceasefire negotiations throughout the nearly two-year-long war, is now widely seen as Hamas’ most influential figure abroad since Haniyeh was killed by Israel in Iran in July 2024.

He sits on a five-member leadership council established after Sinwar’s death in Gaza in October 2024. A native of the Palestinian territory, he has lost several relatives in Israeli airstrikes, including his eldest son.

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Al-Hayya is regarded as a key interlocutor with Iran, Hamas’ main source of weapons and financial support. He has been deeply involved in the movement’s mediation efforts, contributing to several ceasefire agreements with Israel, most notably the 2014 truce and current attempts to halt the ongoing Gaza war.

Born in Gaza in 1960, al-Hayya became a founding member of Hamas in 1987 after initially joining the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s alongside Haniyeh and Sinwar.

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He was arrested multiple times by Israel during his years in Gaza. His personal losses have been significant: in 2007, an Israeli airstrike on his family home in Gaza’s Shuja‘iya neighborhood killed several relatives, and during the 2014 war, his son Osama, along with Osama’s wife and three children, were killed in another bombardment.

Al-Hayya left Gaza several years ago, settling in Qatar to oversee Hamas’ relations with the Arab and Muslim world. From Doha, he has carried out numerous diplomatic initiatives, including accompanying Ismail Haniyeh to Tehran in July 2024, a visit that ended with Haniyeh’s assassination.

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He later declared that the October 7, 2023, attacks were intended as a limited operation to capture Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchanges. In his words, the assault had “revived the Palestinian cause worldwide,” while he claimed that “Israel’s Gaza Division had completely collapsed.”

Repeatedly heading Hamas delegations in mediation talks, al-Hayya has sought to secure a ceasefire agreement that would exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

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He has also led other political initiatives for Hamas. In 2022, he headed a delegation to Damascus to mend ties with President Bashar al-Assad, which had been severed over a decade earlier when Hamas supported the largely Sunni uprising against the Alawite-led regime. This step aimed to ease tensions within the Iran-led regional alliance confronting Israel and the United States.

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