Today, Explained - The Hamas org chart

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Seven months in, Israel has not “eliminated” Hamas leadership. Newsweek’s Tom O’Connor introduces them, and Mairav Zonszein from International Crisis Group explains what it means for the war. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The calls for a ceasefire may be quieting on college campuses, but they're getting louder around the world. The level of human suffering is catastrophic, and that's why, Mr. Speaker, we need an immediate ceasefire. The International Court of Justice called on Israel to immediately halt its offensive in Rafah. That came a few days after Spain, Norway, and Ireland recognized an independent Palestinian state. And a few days before, an Israeli airstrike in Rafah Sunday killed dozens of Palestinian refugees. Civilians burnt alive. And children decapitated. Israel says the strike was a tragic mishap, but that it killed two Hamas officials. But the top Hamas leadership remains intact.

And therein lies the paradox. Israel wants to take out top leadership all while negotiating with said leadership remains essential to a ceasefire. On Today Explained, we're finally going to talk about who's running Hamas. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with Bet MGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about Bet MGM.

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Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. You're listening to Today Explained. Tom O'Connor writes about national security and foreign policy for Newsweek. He joined us to talk about the three guys at the top of the Hamas org chart.

Yahya Sinwar and Mohamed Deif, who are believed to be in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, who is known to be in Doha, Qatar. We started with Sinwar. The last we've seen of him is a video that was released a few months ago, I believe, by the Israelis. We are releasing a footage of the mass murder and mastermind behind the Hamas massacre of October 7th, Ichi Sinwar. Purported to be him, it looks like like him with some family members going through a tunnel. This video is one of many that we have obtained since October 7th. All three of them, including Hani, are really from the same generation of children born into refugee families in Gaza that escaped from other parts of what was before the mandate of Palestine before the 48 War. They grow up in the 80s at a time where Gaza is under Israeli military occupation.

They get arrested by Israel. They get out and they rise up the ranks in the group. So to start really with Senwar, he's also known as Abu Ibrahim in Arabic, born in Khan Yunus. He goes to the Islamic University of Gaza, like all these three guys do, essentially. And pretty early on in the 80s, he's arrested the first time. And we have to remember, the 80s is a very tense time in the Gaza Strip. The first intifada, which is a mass uprising, there's violence everywhere. It's absolutely clear that the commitment is not only to regain the Palestinian homeland for the PLO, the commitment is to do it by armed force. And this is really when Hamas forms and it gets its

support base from these disaffected Palestinian activists who become increasingly conservative and religiously focused in their sort of their activities. So Simuars arrested once, I think the first time is in 1982. He has a few run-ins with the police and basically the Israeli security forces at the time. But he really gets this reputation when he comes out as this really brutal enforcer. And he's known for not only killing Israelis, but he's also accused of killing Palestinians that are accused of collaborating with Israel. So he's arrested once again in the late 80s.

And this time he stays in prison for a long time. And he doesn't really emerge again, actually, till about 2011. Israel has begun transferring Palestinian prisoners ahead of their planned release in an exchange deal for the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. There's this big exchange, about a thousand Palestinians, Sanwar being one of them. I'm still a soldier, and I will continue with my nephews on the battlefield. I have been absent for 25 years, so there are many things I need to learn. Hamas is running the show in Gaza.

He's basically part of what has become now Hamas's internal security forces. He's doing these interrogations, and he's also doing something else that's very important. He's building ties with this axis of resistance that includes Hezbollah, includes Iran, and some of the other groups in the region are really tied together by the IRGC. And that's important because Hamas and Iran have had kind of complicated relationship over time. The Sunni-Shia divide has informed their relationship, the Syrian civil war. But this relationship starts to blossom a bit. And then in 2017, he is promoted to the chief of affairs in Gaza.

And he's really seen, obviously, as the key figure in terms of organizing, in terms of leading Hamas in the Gaza Strip itself. And also potentially underground somewhere is Mohamed Deif. Yeah. So Mohamed Deif is a far more elusive figure than Senwar. Now Senwar, you know, he was public. He was out there. You know, he went to events. He went to rallies. He dared, you know, Israel on occasions to assassinate him. Mohammad Daif has pretty much lived in the shadows for much of his life. He's the product of a refugee family that lived in Gaza. He went to university in the 80s.

Funny enough, he actually had an extracurricular activity. He actually took on theater. Not what you'd expect maybe from your top Islamist militant commando, but he's held by the Israelis for, I think, about a year and a half or so. And when he emerges, he really quickly becomes essentially one of the founding forces within the emerging Al-Qassam brigades, which really starts to take root in the 1980s. And his claim to fame really is just excelling in bomb-making skills and strategy and ambushes. And he's really seen as one of the key figures behind the scenes when it came to these mass attacks going into even after the First Intifada, it was the Second Intifada in the 2000s.

And in 2002, the head of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Salahafada, it was the second Tafada in the 2000s. And in 2002, the head of the Al-Qasambir, Salah Shahada, is killed, and Muhammad Daif essentially takes his place. So, Muhammad Daif, as far as his background itself, less is known about him. The name, actually, Muhammad Daif is not his real name. It's a nickname that refers to the term Daif means guest in Arabic. And it refers to the fact that he never stays in the same place for too long. And he's really been a major target for Israeli assassination attempts and airstrikes. He's escaped a number of attempts on his life. But he's also, as far as we know, he's lost an eye.

He's lost other limbs. We know, he's lost an eye. He's lost other limbs. We know that he's been severely injured. That's part of the reason, perhaps, why we don't see a lot of him. I think there's really only maybe two or three photos ever released of him, actually. But he's also lost family members in some of these attacks, too, we know. So he is a dedicated commando leader. And he's almost, to some, a Che Guevara kind of figure. He's become so iconic in ways that even just his silhouette, which is usually how he presents

himself, like he did in October 7th when he gave this super galvanizing speech. But the silhouette is being raised at rallies and stuff like that. So certainly a very influential figure. Okay, so that covers the leadership we think is inside Gaza. What about leadership outside of Gaza? What about Haniyeh? Yeah, so Haniyeh really, today serves as the top leadership of all Hamas as the chief of the Politburo. He's in Doha, based there. He travels. He's part of the public face of Hamas. He's pivotal to their international relations and their efforts to have more international legitimacy, to forge relations with other countries, other powers. Now, according to reports, Ismail Haniyeh will be meeting with Egypt's spy chief

to discuss stopping the aggression in the besieged enclave and an agreement for the release of prisoners. And he is seen as more, always been seen as more of a political figure for Hamas. He was actually a former prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority at this brief time where there was a unity government. Hani is no longer considered, of course, prime minister, but he assumes control over Gaza. And then he, of course, then goes on to become the head of all Hamas. So that's really his position right now. He's, again, super important to the formal leadership structure of the group.

He's not necessarily calling every single shot in Gaza itself. Hamas really has structured itself in a way to function quite autonomously from even the battalion level. How important, how essential are these three guys to Hamas? How much would it change Hamas's strategy, presence, if they were found or killed or arrested? Yeah. So, you know, there's no doubt that there's both symbolic and tactical, you know, value in taking out top Hamas leaders, you know, but if we look at the history of Hamas, they've lost just about every top leader they've had, you know, over the years, and they've had new people, you know, I mentioned, you know, Muhammad Daif, he came in because Salah Shahada was killed. So

it's not to say that these guys have, and the group itself, let's say, doesn't have this organizational experience in filling these ranks. And that's something, again, that they say, you know, I've talked to Senior Hamas officials who have said that we feel it when they kill our leaders. They do because these people, not only do they have this influence and this public image, they also have contacts. They know people. There's a reason that they rose up the ranks in the group itself. But they have people in waiting, they have replacements, and they have replacements for the replacements. We've heard that a lot. So, you know, I think that and this is something the Israeli officials tell us is that, yes, you know, we want we want to get these guys there, you know, they're on our target list. And we've seen them, you know, do these assassination operations for some of these guys who are abroad, like Aruri, for example. But they're not setting the deaths or the capture of these top officials as a prerequisite for claiming victory. Until there's, I think, a fundamental, you know, solution to address the conditions

that allow these guys to, you know, gain power and rise up the ranks and form different groups, even if it's another group after Hamas. I think it's still a long way from saying anything like mission accomplished. Tom O'Connor, Newsweek.com. More on how these top Hamas leaders have evaded Israeli forces when we're back on Today Explained comes from Ramp. the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions, and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained,

R-A-M-P dot com slash explained. R-A-M-P dot com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Support for this show comes from the ACLU. The ACLU knows exactly what threats a second Donald Trump term presents. And they are ready with a battle-tested playbook. The ACLU took legal action against the first Trump administration 434 times. And they will do it again to protect immigrants' rights, defend reproductive freedom, fight discrimination, and fight for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms. This Giving Tuesday, you can support the ACLU. fight discrimination, and fight for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms.

This Giving Tuesday, you can support the ACLU. With your help, they can stop the extreme Project 2025 agenda. Join the ACLU at aclu.org today. This is Today Explained. My name is Merav Zunshine, and I'm the Senior Israel Analyst with the International Crisis Group. Could you just tell us why Israel has failed to destroy top Hamas leadership? When you kind of get down to the nitty-gritty of how the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, defines the war goals. They specifically talk about taking away the governing and military capabilities of Hamas.

So even though we heard a lot of very incendiary rhetoric, destroying Hamas, destroying Gaza, all these things, when you actually break it down, they want to remove Hamas as a power in the Gaza Strip. Hamas will be dismantled. And Hamas leaders, wherever they're hiding, should know they're on borrowed time. We will continue doing everything in our power to fulfill our mission. Free our hostages from Hamas and free Gaza from Hamas. And they haven't been able to do that largely. And I think there's two main reasons for that. One is that it's very difficult to take apart a non-state kind of terror group that has taken root inside a very small, urban, densely populated area when they've been there for almost 20 years and when, you know, a lot of what they do is figuring out how to defend and offend in

search of resisting Israeli occupation, oppression, and also because they're not a state actor. They have to use all kinds of means to do that, including building a tunnel network. You've got reinforced concrete. They have electrical wires. There is plumbing overhead. I'm about 5'8", and you can see this goes way above my head. So it's probably about 10 feet tall. So that, plus the fact that Hamas had taken many, many hostages, and to this day there are over 100 hostages still in Gaza, it seems pretty likely that the Israeli military has had a difficult time getting to Hamas leadership and key players because they probably are surrounded by hostages. And as much destruction and devastation and killing that we've seen, I think there would have been probably even more

if those hostages weren't there and they wouldn't have to worry about that collateral damage. The other is, besides the kind of military difficulty and the urban warfare difficulty before October 7th and the criticism since October 7th of the Netanyahu government and Netanyahu specifically, was that he had a very clear policy of keeping Hamas in power and also of trying to contain Hamas in a way because Hamas is a very good excuse for Israel to continue on its path of settlement expansion and occupation and rejection of a Palestinian state, rejection of Palestinian self-determination because we're talking about, you know, a terror group that many in the world don't think is legitimate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back today against criticism of his Gaza strategy from within his own government. Israel's defense minister accused Netanyahu of indecision and leading Israel down a, quote, dangerous course. Indecision is, in essence, a decision. This leads to a dangerous course, which promotes the idea of Israeli military and civilian governance in Gaza.

This is a negative and dangerous option for the state of Israel, strategically, militarily, and from a security standpoint. We must make tough decisions for the future of our country, favoring national priorities above all other possible considerations, even with the possibility of personal or political costs. So he kind of kept Hamas there for a long time, and in some ways maybe still has an interest in keeping Hamas at play somewhat, even though that is, of course, counterintuitive or productive to what Israel wants, what Israel is saying it wants. But as long as Hamas is there, Israel doesn't have to get into any kind of peace process, any kind of serious political negotiation, doesn't have to take the Palestinian demands

for a state, for liberation, for rights as seriously, let's say. And specifically, even if we assume that Netanyahu is committed to getting rid of Hamas, he has an interest in staying in power now. And the best way to stay in power is to keep the war going on and on and on. Has it worked at all? Have they got to any of Hamas's top leadership? They've gotten to some of, I think, the more senior commanders in charge of certain aspects of the military wing of Hamas. They've broken a significant number of Hamas battalions, killed thousands of Hamas fighters, including senior commanders.

Hamas's number three, Marwan Issa, was killed in an Israeli operation last week. The rest of the top leaders are in hiding, likely deep in the Hamas tunnel network. You know, they've had like these tactical achievements throughout the war. We took out this guy. We took out that guy. He was responsible for this. But nobody in the inner circle that makes the decisions, nobody, I think, in the immediate, like, five people with Sinoir. And they really are very much

interested in getting to those people, not just because they're the people making the decisions, but because of this feeling of revenge that they need to take these people out in order to have at least a symbolic victory. It sounds like you're saying that it's not really plausible to just fully eradicate Hamas. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, there's a few reasons for that. I mean, first of all, you know, you have the strongest military in the Middle East fighting for eight months now, almost. And I think something like some of the U.S. military intelligence numbers and reports that have come out talk about maybe 30% of Hamas militants. Also, we don't know exactly how they categorize what a Hamas militant is, but even if we take higher numbers that Israel gives, let's say half of the casualties, which is over 35,000,

let's say half of those are Hamas militants, it's still not, you know, a number that can really take apart an organization necessarily. Now, maybe it's enough to, you know, a number that can really take apart an organization necessarily. Now, maybe it's enough to, you know, not allow Hamas to operate as a military anymore, not allow it, not enable it to attack Israeli border communities anymore. That's possible. And I think, again, like the war goals and the rhetoric were way, way higher than they could have made good on. They promised things that they just couldn't deliver on. And so if they had also made the war goals a bit more realistic at the beginning, then the achievements that they've had until now may have looked different.

How does the United States feel about Israel's strategy with Hamas at this point? I mean, in some ways, Biden, you know, has been talking lately a little bit out of, you know, two parts of his mouth. Like, I mean, the U.S. has fully supported Israel diplomatically, politically, economically, militarily throughout this war. So in this moment, we must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself. It also purportedly supports Israel's war goals of getting the hostages back and destroying Hamas. It full-on agrees with Israel's decision to go out to this war. But how it's waged its war is where certain former generals and certain former generals and certain Biden administration people have said, like, you could do it in a different way.

I don't think the two things are incompatible. You know, I think you can conduct military operations effectively and also account for civilians in the battle space. There are ways to do this where you can account for both. You can protect the people and also accomplish your objectives. And I think that, you know, as this war has gone on and as the U.S. to some extent and Israel as well are probably surprised that they didn't make more inroads. And as the election year in the U.S. started, they started to lose patience and started to realize on the humanitarian issue specifically that they really need to kind of at least provide the appearances of making things better. This pier that they just built, you know, it's not necessarily going to be effective as much as, you know, a ceasefire would be for humanitarian aid. But effectively, the U.S. has come out and said, like, you need

to have a better plan for not only once you have taken Hamas out in a certain area, you have to kind of stay there and figure out who's going to take over. And that's the part that the U.S. and pretty much all of Netanyahu's war cabinet has come out criticizing him about. They basically have said, even where you have been able to take out Hamas, you have nothing to fill that vacuum. There's no alternative. You've rejected any kind of plan. You've rejected the Palestinian Authority in some level. And even if those plans are not very realistic, Israel at this point isn't even paying lip service to them. So I think the U.S. is very frustrated with the fact that there's no exit strategy, no endgame, no political post-war

vision for Gaza. And that's, you know, obviously very problematic. It just sounds like a strategic failure on top of strategic failure on Israel's part. Is it all but certain that Hamas will still be standing come the end of this war? Some people in Israel, even, you know, putting aside Netanyahu, are really committed to removing Hamas from power, even if it takes years, even if Israel has to be enrolling operations and some form of occupation for many years. And legitimately, Israelis who lived along the border there won't be able to feel safe staying there. You have a real security issue and an internal domestic crisis that Israel has lost. Israelis have lost total confidence in the ability of the state to protect them. And that's a real issue that the political and the military echelon need to deal with.

Even if the Hamas current regime as it stands is somehow surrenders or exiled or removed at the end of this, there's still going to be, you know, Hamas people and Hamas approaches and ideology. And it's also a dynamic thing. It's constantly changing. So the Palestinian issue was pushed under the rug. U.S. presidents have denied that as an issue. Israeli prime ministers and, you know, consecutive governments and the society have just kind of decided that it's not an issue they need to deal with. And that hubris and that impunity led us in many ways to October 7th. So, you know, that's something that Israelis are going to have to reckon with now. And that's something that, you know, the world is reacting very strongly to, I think, years of occupation with no price to pay. And unfortunately, the price now is very, very high.

Merov, Zanshine, International Crisis Group. The show today was produced by Victoria Chamberlain, edited by Amin Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham. It's Today Explained. you