Earlier Sunday, Palestinian resistance group Hamas announced that a delegation from its leadership arrived in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh “to begin talks on mechanisms for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a prisoner exchange.”
The Hamas delegation is led by the group's exiled Gaza leader, Khalil al Hayya, whose visit to Egypt was the first since he survived an Israeli airstrike in Doha, the Qatari capital, last month, designed to kill him along with other top Hamas officials.
The same strike killed his son Humam al Hayya. It was the latest in a string of Israeli attempts on his life that had wiped out much of Khalil’s family.
What’s even more ominous is that Israel attacked Khalil and other Hamas leaders when they had gathered in Doha to discuss a peace proposal.
Khalil al Hayya was born in 1960 in Gaza. He has been part of Hamas since it was established in 1987. In the early 1980s, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood along with Haniyeh and Sinwar, according to Hamas officials.
Al Hayya has been closely involved in Hamas’ efforts to broker several truces with Israel, playing a key role in ending a 2014 conflict and again in attempts to secure an end to the current Gaza war.
In 2007, an Israeli airstrike hit his family home in Gaza City's Sejaiyeh quarter, killing several of his relatives.
Less than a decade later, during the 2014 war between Hamas and Israel, Israeli forces destroyed the home of his eldest son Osama, killing him, his wife, and three of their children. Al Hayya was not there during the attacks.
Al Hayya left Gaza several years ago, serving as a Hamas point person for ties with the Arab and Islamic countries and relocating to Qatar for the role. He accompanied Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to Tehran for the fateful visit in July 2024, during which Haniyeh was reportedly assassinated by Israel.
After Haniyeh’s successor, Yahya Sinwar, was also killed by Israel last October in Gaza, the 60-year-old al Hayya became part of a five-man leadership council that has led Hamas.
In August, Israeli media reported that two of al Hayya’s nephews, Ayman Abd al Salam al Hayya and Mu’az Abd al Salam al Hayya, were killed in Gaza while cutting firewood in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighbourhood.
On September 29, Trump unveiled a 20-point plan which includes the release of all Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a ceasefire, the disarmament of Hamas and the rebuilding of Gaza.
A Hamas delegation led by al Hayya arrived in Egypt on Sunday for indirect negotiations with Israel after declaring that it has agreed to the plan in principle.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed over 67,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023.
The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable and has led to mass displacement, starvation and the proliferation of disease.
