Senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya has been named the overall leader of the Palestinian militant group after winning a run-off vote in the movement's General Shura Council against former political chief Khaled Meshaal.
Al-Hayya has emerged as one of the most influential leaders of the militant group following the deaths of several top officials in Israeli strikes, including Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip. He has also survived an Israeli raid in Qatar in September last year.
A native of the Gaza Strip, Hayya is a veteran member of Hamas and has been associated with the group since its establishment in 1987. Before that, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, alongside Haniyeh and Sinwar, according to Hamas sources, a Reuters report said.
Hayya is an Islamic scholar. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Islamic University of Gaza in 1983, a master's degree from the University of Jordan in 1986, and a doctorate in Hadith sciences from Sudan in 1997. He later served as the dean of student affairs at the Islamic University of Gaza and became a member of the Palestinian Scholars Association.
Hayya has played a key role in Hamas' political and diplomatic efforts. Widely regarded as having close ties with Iran, a major source of arms and financial support for Hamas, he has been involved in brokering several truces with Israel. He was a key figure in efforts to end the 2014 conflict and later took part in indirect negotiations with Israel that resulted in a US-brokered ceasefire in October 2025, halting major fighting in Gaza.
He was also at the centre of ceasefire negotiations throughout the Gaza war that followed the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel. He had said the attack was intended as a limited operation to capture Israeli soldiers for a prisoner exchange, claiming the situation escalated after the Israeli military unit involved "completely collapsed."
Since the killing of Haniyeh in July 2024, Hayya has served on a five-member leadership council based in Qatar that has overseen the group's affairs following the death of Yahya Sinwar.
Over the years, Hayya has endured personal losses in the conflict. He was detained several times by Israel while living in Gaza. An Israeli airstrike on his family home in Gaza City's Shejaia neighbourhood in 2007 killed several of his relatives. His son Hamza was killed in an Israeli strike in 2008, while another son, Osama, along with Osama's wife and three children, died when their home was bombed during the 2014 Gaza war. Hayya also lost another son during the current Gaza conflict.
After leaving Gaza several years ago, Hayya became Hamas' point person for relations with the Arab and Islamic world and was based in Qatar. He accompanied Haniyeh to Tehran during the July 2024 visit, in which the former Hamas leader was assassinated.
Hayya has also undertaken several high-profile political assignments for Hamas, including leading a delegation to Damascus in 2022 to restore ties with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which had been severed a decade earlier.
