Key targets in Israel’s operation embrace performing chief Khalil al-Hayya, former head Khaled Mashaal, and finance chief Zaher Jabarin.
Israel on Tuesday carried out a focused airstrike in Doha, Qatar, in an try and assassinate a number of prime members of the Hamas management.
Key targets on this operation have been Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashaal, and Zaher Jabarin, whose fates are all unknown on the time of writing.
However who’re these three folks and what roles have they got in Hamas?
Right here is all the pieces you’ll want to know.
Blasts heard in Doha, Qatar, September 9, 2025. (credit score: Screenshot/Telegram, Through part 27a of copyright act)
Who’s Khalil al-Hayya?
Khalil al-Hayya is the performing chief of Hamas, having been a part of the quinquevirate (five-member) management that made up Hamas’s uppermost echelons within the wake of the assassination of Yahya Sinwar in October 2024.
Born in Gaza, Hayya has been a member of Hamas for many years and was a longtime shut ally of Sinwar. This shut relationship reportedly led him to behave as Sinwar’s important consultant to the Hamas politburo abroad, which some sources attributed to Sinwar’s frosty relationship with the terrorist group’s senior figures in exile.
This place additionally allowed Hayya to foster robust ties with a few of Hamas’s allies, equivalent to Iran.
In 2022, he led a Hamas delegation to Damascus to fix ties with former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, which have been damaged a decade earlier when the motion endorsed the largely Sunni rebellion in opposition to Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect.
Hayya has been very vocal about his assist of the October 7 bloodbath, saying that the assault succeeded in bringing the Palestinian situation again into worldwide focus. Nonetheless, he has additionally stated it was meant to be a restricted operation to seize “a lot of troopers” to swap for jailed Palestinians.
“However the Zionist military unit fully collapsed,” he stated in feedback revealed by the Hamas-linked Palestinian Info Heart, referring to the IDF.
He additional climbed the ranks of the group in 2024 following the IDF assassination of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri.
In December 2024, Hayya additionally reportedly took over management of the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.
However essentially the most public and notable function Hayya has performed in Hamas is because the terrorist group’s chief negotiator, being the first determine attending the various hostage deal and ceasefire negotiations.
All through his time in Hamas, Hayya has survived quite a few assassination makes an attempt in opposition to him, a few of which reportedly resulted within the deaths of lots of his family.
FORMER HAMAS HEAD Khaled Mashaal speaks throughout an interview in Doha, Qatar, final 12 months. ‘The enemy solely understands the language of jihad and martyrdom,’ he says. (credit score: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS)
Who’s Khaled Mashaal?
Khaled Mashaal is a longtime pillar of Hamas and had served because the group’s chief for many years, with him being changed by Ismail Haniyeh in 2017.
Regardless of not being Hamas’s chief, Mashaal has retained a excessive profile within the group and has stepped in as performing chief on multiple event over the course of the Israel-Hamas Struggle.
Regardless of having served in Hamas for therefore lengthy, Mashaal has not lived in Palestinian territory since earlier than the group was based – aside from a number of temporary visits, with the Mashaal household having fled the nation following the Six Day Struggle.
When Hamas was established in 1987, Mashaal led the group’s actions in Kuwait and took a seat on the Hamas politburo when it was based within the Nineties, quickly turning into its chairman.
When Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin was killed by Israel in 2004, Mashaal was acknowledged because the true chief of the group. Below his management, Hamas gained widespread reputation, beating Fatah and successful a majority within the 2006 Palestinian elections.
Mashaal additionally performed a serious function in negotiating the prisoner swap deal that noticed the discharge of captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in 2012.
Quite a few assassination makes an attempt have additionally been made in opposition to Mashaal through the years, together with a really high-profile Mossad poisoning try in 1997, which sparked a diplomatic disaster with Jordan.
Even after his retirement in 2017, Mashaal retained an necessary function within the group. Following the killing of Sinwar, he was one of many Hamas officers to affix the quinquevirate management to assist lead the group.
Who’s Zaher Jabarin?
Zaher Jabarin is the longtime chief of the Hamas Monetary Bureau and was accountable for managing the intricate monetary community and funding portfolio. On this capability, he was the person who made certain the cash flowed, retaining the terrorist group operating and pumping it in for his or her varied operations.
Within the late Eighties, throughout Hamas’s early years, Jabarin co-founded the group’s West Financial institution navy forces. On this capability, he was thought-about accountable for the various killings of IDF troopers and police through the First Intifada.
Arrested by Israeli forces in 1993 and sentenced to life in jail, Jabarin was freed in 2011 through the Gilad Schalit prisoner swap deal. After this, he left the nation, setting himself up in Instanbul to handle the Monetary Bureau, in addition to the Workplace of Martyrs, Wounded, and Prisoners.
Jabarin was profitable in his managing of the Hamas funds, rising the group’s funds to the issue of lots of of tens of millions of {dollars}. This included diversified investments, equivalent to actual property and shares, to personal donations and fundraising operations. By 2024, Hamas’s investments have been valued at over half a billion {dollars}, in line with NBC Information. Moreover, in line with the US Workplace of International Property Management, he additionally helped enhance the move of funds to Hamas from Iran.
However Jabarin took on new tasks in early 2024 after the dying of Arouri, main the Hamas finance chief to turn out to be the brand new chief of the group’s West Financial institution operations.
This led to an uptick in terrorist assaults within the West Financial institution and components of Israel, at a time when Hamas’s capabilities in Gaza have been strained below strain by the IDF.
As well as, Jabarin’s management of the Workplace of Martyrs, Wounded, and Prisoners noticed him play a task within the negotiations with Israel over the hostages.
Reuters contributed to this report
