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Hamas leadership operating behind veil of secrecy

After Israel killed a string of its leaders, Hamas anointed new commanders to top ranks, this time shrouding their identities in secrecy to protect them from assassination.Israel vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack, launching a blistering offensive in Gaza that has massively weakened the movement while reducing much of the territory to rubble.Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh, the head of its armed wing Mohammed Deif, and Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7 attack, have all been killed, as have a string of other commanders and political figures.Yet unlike its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, whose cult of personality around its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah was a key pillar of its identity, Hamas has placed less of an emphasis on its top ranks.The group has remained tight-lipped over the names of its top ranks, particularly the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades. “The name of the head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades will remain a secret,” said a source close to Hamas’s armed wing.Researchers say it is likely that the role was inherited by Yahya Sinwar’s younger brother Mohammed, whom Hamas put in charge of the hostages taken into Gaza in 2023.”Yahya Sinwar’s personality was rather unique” and militants viewed him as a “hero”, said Laetitia Bucaille, who teaches political sociology at the INALCO institute of Middle East studies in Paris.Mohammed Sinwar’s blood link to the slain commander, coupled with his own experience in the brigades, have conferred upon him an automatic authority, she said.- Collective leadership -Israel vowed after October 7 to eradicate Hamas, and while the movement has suffered staggering losses, it has not been crushed.According to Yasser Abu Heen, founder of the Gaza-based Safa news agency, the loss of so many of its leaders has impacted Hamas, “but only temporarily”.”These hits do not pose an existential crisis, Hamas has its own way of running its institutions,” he said. “Israel will not be able to eradicate it.” Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, a member of Hamas’s political bureau described how it acts as the movement’s executive arm, voting on decisions and then taking action.Political bureau membership is decided by the larger Shura Council, the equivalent of a parliament, he added.”We will not know the new leaders’ names. There’s a push to keep their identities secret, and to maintain a collective sense of power,” said Leila Seurat of the Arab Centre for Research and Political Studies in Paris.”This isn’t a movement based on a charismatic leadership.”While Hamas has survived thus far, it has yet to make the toughest decision of all concerning its future role in Gaza and in the Palestinian struggle for statehood.Reduced under daily bombardment, Hamas faces demands not just from Israel but from powers around the world and even from some Palestinians to give up power.- Dissent -The Palestinian Authority, whose decades of corruption contributed to Hamas’s ascent, has pitched itself as a credible ruling entity for the battered territory.Within Hamas, discussions are raging on whether to hand over power.According to sources cited by the Soufan Center in New York: “The internal debate has intensified to the point where some Hamas political leaders have considered breaking with the group’s military leaders in Gaza.”Hamas is no stranger to division, with Seurat pointing to crises in the past over a range of issues from the Arab Spring to the movement’s alliance with Iran.But the war with Israel has brought to a head frustration among ordinary Gazans sick of a conflict that has killed many thousands and reduced their territory to rubble.Musa Abu Marzouk, a leading Hamas figure involved in talks over the ceasefire with Israel, told The New York Times in late February that as far as he was concerned, “if it was expected that what happened would happen, there wouldn’t have been October 7”.In March, hundreds of people took to the streets of Gaza, chanting “Out, out, Hamas out!”, after a rare call to protest circulated via Telegram.”Some Palestinians want Hamas to go. Some have always been opposed, while others are just fed up,” said Seurat.Pressure alone will not work, however, because Hamas has no viable competitor, and the people of Gaza simply do not have the means to stand up to it.”They are still in control,” said Bucaille. “While Hamas has been weakened, no one can stand up to it for now.”

US, Saudis urge Sudan peace talks as top Riyadh diplomat visits Washington

Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat held talks in Washington on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for a visit by US President Donald Trump, which would be the first foreign trip of his second term.Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department, and the two called on the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces to resume peace talks.The diplomats “agreed that the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces must return to peace talks, protect civilians, open humanitarian corridors, and return to civilian governance,” the State Department statement said following the meeting.The call came after the Sudanese army said last week it had retaken full control of the capital Khartoum after weeks of attacks by the paramilitaries.The RSF has been battling the army since April 2023, and the war has created what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst hunger and displacement crises. More than 12 million people have been uprooted, tens of thousands killed, and a UN-backed assessment declared famine in parts of the country.The United States under Joe Biden and the Saudis have previously sponsored several unsuccessful rounds of negotiations to end the bloody conflict.- Trump visit -Trump said last month he may visit Saudi Arabia as early as April in a reprisal of 2017, when the oil-rich, conservative kingdom was the first destination of his first term in office.The foreign minister’s visit is aimed to “prepare for Trump’s visit to Riyadh,” a source close to the Saudi government said.The source, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said “developments in Gaza, Yemen and Syria” were also on Prince Faisal’s agenda.Rubio and his Saudi counterpart on Wednesday “discussed diplomatic efforts in Gaza to release hostages and work towards a durable ceasefire,” the State Department statement read.Palestinian group Hamas should be “completely disarmed and disempowered” after fighting ends in the territory, it added.In January, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, promised to pile $600 billion into US trade and investments.Trump later said Saudi Arabia had agreed to “spend close to a trillion dollars… in our American companies, which to me means jobs.”Trump forged close relations with Riyadh in his first term and is expected to push Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s holiest sites, towards normalizing ties with Israel as a major foreign policy objective.Trump in his first term also boasted of having protected Crown Prince Mohammed from greater repercussions over the killing of Saudi dissident and US resident Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Settlement champion Huckabee confirmed as US Israel envoy

The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who has said Israel enjoys a divine right to the West Bank, as ambassador to Israel.Huckabee will head to the US embassy in Jerusalem as Israel seizes large areas of Gaza, part of a renewed military campaign that has had President Donald Trump’s blessing.The Senate voted largely on party lines to confirm Trump’s nominee, with one Democrat, John Fetterman, supporting him. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar quickly spoke with Huckabee by telephone to congratulate him, calling him a “true friend of the Jewish state.”Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is a West Bank settler, on X voiced hope for working with Huckabee on “advancing our shared values and common goals.”Trump told reporters after the vote that Huckabee is “going to be a great ambassador to Israel.””He’s going to bring home the bacon,” Trump said, using a popular idiom for achieving success, before clarifying that bacon, which is not kosher in Judaism, “isn’t too big” in Israel.Huckabee, a Baptist minister who served as governor of Arkansas and ran for president in 2008, has long been an outspoken supporter of Israel, backing calls to annex the West Bank before such talk became increasingly mainstream.On a 2017 visit to a settlement in the West Bank, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 war, Huckabee said there was “no such thing as an occupation.” He later said that Israel “has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” using a biblical term for the West Bank.Grilled about his remarks at his confirmation hearing by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, Huckabee denied that he was backing the expulsion of Palestinians.”I’ve never, never indicated that that was a part of that. I simply referenced the biblical mandate that goes all the way back to the time of Abraham, 3,500 years ago,” Huckabee said.Huckabee in his hearing repeatedly said that he would defer to Trump and not set policy based on his personal beliefs.Trump, before taking office, backed a ceasefire in the Gaza war, which started with the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.But he also vowed full-fledged support to Israel including expediting arms shipments.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expanded settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, but stopped short of a formal annexation backed by some of his far-right supporters.Huckabee has also been a television talk-show host and plays guitar in a classic-rock cover band.His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, served as Trump’s press secretary in his first term and now serves as governor of Arkansas.

Israel says seizing ‘large areas’ of Gaza as strike kills 23

Israel said Wednesday its troops were seizing “large areas” in Gaza and making the Palestinian territory “smaller and more isolated”, as an air strike on a residential block killed at least 23 people.Defence Minister Israel Katz’s comments come weeks into a renewed offensive by the military on the war-battered territory, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, while an aid blockade has revived the spectre of famine for its 2.4 million people.French President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile said that France plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the “coming months”, a move that risks antagonising Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.Katz said that “large areas are being seized and added to Israel’s security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated”, during a visit to the newly announced Morag Corridor between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.Katz emphasised that Israel would keep increasing pressure on Gaza “until the hostages are freed and Hamas is defeated”.Katz also said that Israel was encouraging plans for “voluntary emigration… in accordance with the vision of the US president, which we are working to implement”.US President Donald Trump had earlier this year proposed a plan to develop Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” while displacing its population elsewhere.Gaza’s civil defence agency meanwhile said an Israeli air strike on a residential building in Gaza City killed at least 23 people, most of them children or women, while the military said it targeted a “senior Hamas” militant.The strike took place in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, the agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.”There are still people trapped under the rubble,” he said.- ‘Torn to pieces’ -Ayub Salim, a 26-year-old Shujaiya resident, told AFP that the area was hit with “multiple missiles” and was “overcrowded with tents, displaced people and homes”.”Dust and massive destruction filled the entire place, we couldn’t see anything, just the screams and panic of the people.”Salim said the dead were “torn to pieces”.A crew from the Gaza civil defence agency rushed to the scene, only to find several people trapped under the rubble, a rescuer said.”This house was home to many people who believed they were safe. It was blown up over their heads,” rescuer Ibrahim Abu al-Rish told AFP. “We pulled out the remains of women and children. There are still people buried under the rubble,” he said.First responders and neighbours worked to break through the concrete floor of an entire storey that collapsed in the strike and trapped residents, AFP footage showed.Taking turns swinging a sledgehammer through the thick, hard surface, they eventually broke a hole through which the bodies of children were extracted and taken away wrapped in dusty blankets.- ‘Move towards recognition’ -When asked by AFP about the strike, the Israeli military said it “struck a senior Hamas terrorist who was responsible for planning and executing terrorist attacks” from the area. It did not give the target’s name.Hamas condemned the strike as one of the “most heinous acts of genocide.”Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Wednesday that at least 1,482 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,846.Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.The strike came as CIA chief John Ratcliffe visited Jerusalem on Wednesday, days before the US holds nuclear talks with Iran and amid continued attempts to revive a ceasefire in Gaza.Meanwhile, Macron said France could recognise a Palestinian state as early as June.”We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron told France 5 television.”I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,” he added. Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin told AFP that France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood “would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two state solution”.