GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Hamas arsonist Yehiyeh Sinwar was re-elected on Wednesday as the leader of the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip, leaving a figure closely aligned with the hardline military wing in charge of group’s strategy in its main fortress.
Sinwar, 58, resisted a challenge from Nizar Awadallah, one of the founders of Hamas. Sinwar will serve another four-year term.
His victory could have profound implications for Hamas’ relations with Israel and other regional players. It can also impact the upcoming Palestinian elections, the first in 15 years.
Hamas’ supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, congratulated Sinwar on his victory and praised both candidates for the “high confidence” they had won.
Haniyeh, a former Gaza leader who now lives in exile in Qatar, said the vote was “real, not false” and that tens of thousands of Hamas members participated. He said the results “demonstrate the seriousness of the movement in the next Palestinian presidential and national elections”.
Sinwar is a former member of the group’s militant wing who spent more than two decades in an Israeli prison after being convicted of kidnapping and killing two Israeli soldiers. He was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011. Sinwar maintains close ties to the militant wing and has always promoted a confrontational approach with Israel.
The Gaza Strip is Hamas’ most important area of activity. The Islamist group, which opposes the existence of Israel, violently took control of the territory of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007.
Since then, it has waged three wars and numerous skirmishes against Israel, remaining in power despite the Israeli-Egyptian blockade that devastated the economy.
Awadallah was one of the founders of Hamas in the late 1980s and has closer ties to the group’s political leaders.
The political wing has closer ties with Qatar and Turkey and tends to be more pragmatic in its dealings with Israel. The militant wing has closer ties with Iran and favors a more confrontational approach with Israel.
Sinwar, however, was also pragmatic on some issues in preventing tensions with Israel from turning into war.
After taking up his position in 2017, he encouraged mass protests along the Gaza-Israel border as an alternative to his traditional tool for firing rockets at Israel.
The protests were aimed at drawing attention to Gaza’s dire living conditions and easing Israel’s blockade. But the protests have often turned violent, with protesters setting fire to tires and attacking a separation fence. Dozens of Palestinians were killed and wounded by Israeli fire.
The protests failed in 2019 under an unofficial truce in which Qatar provided Hamas with tens of millions of dollars for employee salaries, aid projects and cash payments to poor families in exchange for calm.
Sinwar is not afraid to push for a more difficult confrontation. Last year, he threatened to go to battle if Israel did not allow respirators and other medical aid in the impoverished territory to combat the spread of the virus.
“If we find that corona patients in Gaza (are) unable to breathe, we will prevent 6 million Zionists from breathing and get what we want from you by force,” he said at the time. Israel allowed humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza during the pandemic.
Sinwar also helped to improve tense relations with neighboring Egypt. He stepped up security along the Gaza border with the restless north of Sinai to help the Egyptian military there, where he faced a rebellion by local Islamic State group allies.
The measures helped to calm the situation in Sinai and, as a result, Egypt opened a passage for goods such as fuel and tobacco to enter Gaza. It has also opened the Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s main gate to the outside world, more and more regularly.
People close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who runs autonomous areas in the West Bank, said the Palestinian leader expected Awadallah to win.
Officials said Abbas believes the political wing is more pragmatic as Palestinians prepare to hold elections in May with the aim of bringing about reconciliation between rival governments.
They said Abbas is also upset about Sinwar’s close ties to Mohammed Dahlan, a member of Abbas’s Fatah movement who had a disagreement with the president and now lives in exile. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss Abbas’ internal deliberations with the media.
On Wednesday, Dahlan announced that he had arranged for the delivery of 40,000 vaccines against the Sputnik V coronavirus to Gaza, donated by the United Arab Emirates.
Dahlan, who lives in the United Arab Emirates, arranged for a similar delivery of 20,000 vaccines last month. The new shipment is expected on Thursday, he said.
His activities underscored Abbas’ inability to guarantee vaccines for his people. The Palestinian Authority received only 10,000 vaccines manufactured in Russia and sent only 2,000 of them to Gaza.
Vaccines cover only a small fraction of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants.