GAZA CITY, Palestine

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, pledged allegiance to Yahya Sinwar, who was selected as the new head of the group’s political bureau, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh.

“The Al-Qassam Brigades pledge allegiance to the leader Yahya Sinwar and affirm their full readiness to execute his decisions,” Abu Ubaida, military spokesperson for the brigades, said in a statement.

The Al-Qassam Brigades “view the selection of Sinwar as the leader of Hamas, succeeding Haniyeh, as a testament to the vitality and strength of the movement,” he added.

Hamas selected Sinwar, 61, on Tuesday, to replace Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Iran's capital of Tehran, on July 31 in an attack attributed to Israel.

Before being chosen to lead the political bureau of the Palestinian resistance group, Sinwar was elected the head of the movement in the Gaza Strip in 2017 and reelected in 2021.

Israel considers Sinwar the architect of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” cross-border attack operation on Oct. 7, which inflicted significant human and military losses on Israel and damaged the reputation of its intelligence and security services worldwide.

Israel has declared that eliminating Sinwar is one of the main objectives of its current war on Gaza.

Concerns are mounting about a potential outbreak of a full-scale regional war following the assassination of Haniyeh, in addition to prominent Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an airstrike on Beirut on July 30.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since October.

Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 91,700 injured, according to local health authorities.

More than 10 months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio