Khalil al-Hayya: The Biography of a Leader Who Rose from Union and Organizing Work to the Leadership of Hamas

Today, 20 July 2026, the Hamas movement announced the election of Khalil al-Hayya as the new head of its Political Bureau, succeeding the shahīd leader Yahya al-Sinwar. The decision was lauded by all the various branches of the Axis of Resistance, with al-Hayya representing a continuity in a genealogy that is punctuated by figures like Mahmoud al-Zahar, Yahya al-Sinwar, and Mohammed al-Deif to name but a few.

This election marks a new milestone in the long journey of Khalil Ismail al-Hayya, one of Hamas’s most prominent leaders who has combined academic, organizational, and political work over the course of decades. The following is a summary from my longer biographical article.

Khalil Ismail al-Hayya was born on November 5, 1960, in Gaza City, Palestine, into a resistance family that lived through the aftermath of the 1967 war. From his early childhood, his national consciousness was shaped by the realities of the occupation after he witnessed occupation forces raiding his family’s home and arresting several of its members, including his uncle, events that left a deep mark on his character and his subsequent career.

Educational Background

He received his elementary education at Hattin School in Gaza City, then completed middle school at Hashim bin Abd al-Manaf School before earning his high school diploma from Yafa School. He subsequently continued his academic career at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), where he earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Islamic Theology in 1983.

His academic journey did not end there; he received a scholarship to the University of Jordan, where he earned a master's degree in Hadith Studies in 1986. More than a decade later, he culminated his academic career by earning a doctorate in the same field from the University of the Holy Quran and Islamic Sciences in Sudan in 1997.

He returned to IUG there as a teaching assistant in the Faculty of Islamic Theology in 1984. He then rose through the ranks in academic and administrative positions after completing his graduate studies, serving as Assistant Dean of Student Affairs before being appointed Dean of Student Affairs at the same university in 2001. His academic achievements also qualified him for membership in the Association of Palestinian Scholars.

His involvement with the Islamic Movement began early. In early 1983, he joined "al-Qutla al-Islamiyya" (Islamic Bloc), a student group affiliated with the Mujamma al-Islamiyya, as part of a group of young people that included Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and others. As a student he and al-Sinwar reportedly participated in IUG courtyard debates against Fatah's "al-Shabiba" student group.

From that time on, he became involved in grassroots, union work in addition to serving as an imam and da'i in mosques, where his sermons were frequently galvanized by a political message. Additionally, he partook in organizational work with al-Majd, where he contributed to the security organization of the Gaza Strip to protect the community from Zionist collaborators during the period between 1984 and 1986. (The Security and Dawaa Apparatus ('Jihaz Al-Amn wa al-Da’wa'), also known as 'al-Majd,' was founded in 1981/82 and re-established in 1985 by Yahya Al-Sinwar. Majd was dedicated to target Palestinian informants who cooperated with the occupation. )

Al-Hayya also actively participated in the events of the First Palestinian Intifada in 1987 and was part of the group that later founded the Hamas movement, which based its mission on the liberation of the land, the return of the people, and a belief in joint national action.

After consulting with Hamas leaders in Jordan, the Hamas movement dispatched a delegation from the United States headed by Dr. Musa Abu Marzouq. The delegation met at the home of Sheikh Sayed Abu Musameh in Rafah in the presence of Imad al-Falouji, Sufyan Abu Samra, Yusuf al-Ghariz, Saeed Za’rab, Yusuf Rizqa, and Khalil al-Hayya. During the meeting, the movement rebuilt and restructured its organization. The Gaza Strip was divided into five regions and the West Bank into seven, with one leader assigned to oversee the Gaza Strip and another the West Bank. Al-Hayya was critical in this restructuring.*

Periods of Detention

During his early years of activism, al-Hayya was arrested several times. He was first arrested in 1980 and detained for a month and a half, then arrested again in 1982 for a week, during which he was subjected to severe, life-threatening torture. During the First Intifada, he was arrested for the third time in 1991 and detained for three years due to his activities at the Islamic University and his organizational responsibilities in the Gaza Strip, which included serving as vice president of the Islamic University Student Council in 1986, as well as vice president of the Islamic Movement in the Gaza Strip.

Union and Organizing Work

In the union sphere, al-Hayya rose to prominence at the Islamic University, where he was elected vice president of the university's employees' union in 1998 before assuming the presidency of the same union in 2001.

Within Hamas, he rose through the ranks to hold numerous leadership positions. He was elected a member of the movement's Political Bureau and assumed various responsibilities, including serving as deputy head of the movement in Gaza and head of the Office of Arab and Islamic Relations.

Politically, he ran in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections on the "Change and Reform" list for Gaza City and was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council. The movement also appointed him head of its parliamentary bloc, and he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Gaza on the "Change and Reform" list.

On a personal and family level, al-Hayya has suffered a series of painful losses as a result of repeated 'Israeli' attacks. In 2007, he survived an assassination attempt following an 'Israeli' airstrike that targeted his family's home, resulting in the shahāda of seven of his family members, including two of his brothers, four of his nephews, and one of his cousins.

On February 28, 2008, his son Hamza, a member of the Qassam Brigades attained shahāda after being struck by a missile fired from an 'Israeli' reconnaissance aircraft.

Attempts to target al-Hayya continued. On July 20, 2014, he survived another assassination attempt when 'Israeli' occupation forces bombed the home of his eldest son, Osama, in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza. The strike resulted in the shahāda of Osama, his wife, and three of his sons, while al-Hayya's wife and two of Osama's sons survived because they were outside the house at the time of the attack.

Following Operation al-Aqsa Flood, attempts to assassinate him resumed. On September 9, 2025, he survived an attack targeting the Hamas negotiating delegation during a meeting held in the Qatari capital, Doha, to discuss a proposed ceasefire; however, the strike resulted in the shahāda of his son Hammam.

On May 7, 2026, his son Azzam attained shahāda from wounds sustained in an 'Israeli' airstrike that targeted him in the al-Daraj neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, bringing the total number of his sons who attained shahāda to four.

Al-Hayya rose to greater prominence on the political scene following the wars on Gaza in 2012 and 2014, during which he played a prominent role in the Hamas negotiating delegation in Cairo. At the time, he served as head of the movement's media office, and this role helped strengthen his standing within the movement until he became head of the Office of Arab and Islamic Relations.

In October 2022, al-Sinwar dispatched him to lead a Hamas delegation to Damascus where he met with then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a visit he described during a press conference as "a historic meeting and a renewed start for joint Palestinian-Syrian action."

With the outbreak of the Battle of al-Aqsa Flood, he emerged as one of the movement's most prominent political and media figures, heading the negotiating delegation in rounds of indirect talks with 'Israel' mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.

On November 22, 2023, he led the Hamas delegation to Lebanon to meet with Hizbu'llah Secretary-General Hassan Nasru'llah following the announcement of a prisoner exchange agreement between Hamas and the 'Israeli' occupation.

He continued to lead the negotiating delegation for a ceasefire in Gaza until the indirect talks concluded in October 2025 with the announcement of a ceasefire agreement in Sharm el-Sheikh under Egyptian, Qatari, and U.S. auspices.

Following the assassination of Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital of Tehran on July 31, 2024, Hamas announced on August 6, 2024, that Yahya Sinwar had been unanimously elected as the movement's leader, while Khalil al-Hayya was chosen as his deputy.

With his election as head of the Political Bureau in July 2026, al-Hayya reached the highest leadership position in Hamas after a career spanning more than four decades, during which he moved between the fields of academia, da'wah, trade unionism, organizational work, and politics. He was subjected to arrest, persecution, and assassination attempts, and lost several family members and children before becoming one of the movement's most prominent decision-makers and one of its most important political figures at both the Palestinian and regional levels.

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For al-Hayya's full biography, see: Mujamma Haraket, "Khalil al-Hayya and the Hamas Movement's Recent Foreign Policy," 2 November 2025; retrieved online (20 July 2026): substack.com/home/post/…