Sinwar was re-elected to a new term until 2025, said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem.
Sinwar obtained 167 out of 280 votes, sources told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds.
Nizar Awadallah, his main rival, won 147 votes, the sources added.
Sinwar’s victory came less than 24 hours after Gaza sources announced that Awadallah had defeated Sinwar in the terrorist group’s secret internal election.
Shortly thereafter, Awadallah, 63, was proclaimed the winner, but Hamas announced that a second round of voting would be held on Wednesday because he and Sinwar failed to secure more than 50% of the overall vote.
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Awadallah and Sinwar were among the five candidates who contested Hamas’ secret internal election. The other three candidates were Mahmoud Zahar, Fathi Hammad and Ziyad al-Thatha.
Sources close to Hamas said the neck-and-neck race was an unprecedented challenge for Sinwar’s leadership. He was first elected as the group’s leader in the coastal enclave in 2017.
“The tough battle between Sinwar and Awadallah could trigger a crisis among the Hamas leadership,” a Palestinian political analyst in the Gaza Strip told The Jerusalem Post.
According to the analyst, the heated dispute is also a sign of Sinwar’s decline in popularity among Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif Qanou said the secret ballot was conducted “in a transparent, competitive and democratic manner”. The decision to run a second round, he added, “reflected Hamas’ strength and its respect for its regulations.”
Sinwar, 58, was named as the mastermind of the 2018-2019 Hamas-sponsored mass protests, held near the border with Israel. The protests ended without achieving their main objective: the lifting of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
His 63-year-old rival, Awadallah, was one of the engineers in the 2011 Gilad Schalit prisoner exchange agreement, according to Palestinian sources.
The deal, also known as Wafa al-Ahrar (Faithful to the Free), resulted in the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Schalit, an IDF soldier who was kidnapped in 2006 by Palestinian terrorists who dug a tunnel under the Israeli border near Kerem Shalom border crossing.