Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Hamas is being run by a six-man leadership that brings together top officials in the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora. Khalil Al Hayya, a close aide of Yahya Sinwar, the group's former leader who was killed by Israel in Gaza this month, has emerged as his probable successor, sources told The National on Wednesday.
They said the six-man leadership took over the militant group shortly after the killing of Mr Sinwar. Hamas has been run by a joint leadership before: the model was adopted for several years in Gaza in the 1990s when Sheikh Ahmed Yassin served as the group's spiritual leader.
The members of the joint leadership, according to the sources, are Khaled Mashal, who was Hamas's leader until 2017, Mr Al Hayaa, and Zaher Jabareen, the group's intelligence and financial chief. All three are based in Qatar, and Mr Jabareen also spends time in Turkey.
It is obvious now that the way forward for Hamas will be high-profile attacks, suicide missions and an upsurge of attacks in the West Bank
Source
Also included in the collective leadership are Mohammed Sinwar, the late Yahya Sinwar's younger brother, and Rawhi Mushtaha, who Israel claims to have killed but who sources say is still alive. Both are veterans of Hamas's military wing and are now “operational field commanders”, sources say. Muhammad Darwish, the powerful head of the group's Shura Council, who resides in Turkey, is the sixth man in the group's current leadership.
No overall leader for Hamas will be selected, the sources said, until elections are held early in 2025. However Mr Al Hayaa has already emerged as the most probable successor to Yahya Sinwar, they confirmed.
Mr Al Hayya, who is known to maintain close ties with both Iran and Egypt, was often Hamas's chief representative in nearly a year of fruitless negotiations to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas since its fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7 last year.
Like Yahya Sinwar, Mr Al Hayya, 63, was jailed by Israel for three years in the early 1990s. He survived several assassination attempts which were blamed on Israel and in which nearly 30 of his family members, including two of his sons, were killed. He earned a doctorate in Islamic studies from a university in Sudan in 1997. A faithful disciple of Sheikh Yassin, Mr Al Hayya was one of the founders of Hamas in the 1980s.
“Hamas will continue to work towards the creation of a Palestinian state on Palestinian soil with Jerusalem as its capital,” he declared when announcing the death of Yahya Sinwar. The sources said the ascension of Mr Al Hayya to become leader of Hamas is far from a foregone conclusion, adding that Mr Mashal also has a good chance of taking the helm.
The choosing of a new leader comes at a critical time for Hamas. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the total annihilation of the group as being among the top goals of the Gaza war. The coastal enclave has been devastated by Israel's military response to Hamas's October 7 attack, with about 42,800 Palestinians dead according to the enclave's Health Ministry, and more than twice that number wounded.
Large built-up areas of Gaza have been razed and the vast majority of the enclave's 2.3 million residents displaced, multiple times in many cases. Hamas and UN officials maintain that continuing Israeli military operations in northern Gaza appear designed to lay waste to the region and depopulate it, as a prelude to the creation of a buffer zone there.
The sources said Hamas may have lost at least 30 per cent of its military-wing commanders during the war, and as much as 40 per cent of its storied network of underground tunnels. There have also been immense casualties among fighters on the ground, according to the sources, who gave no figures.
Israel claimed in February that it had killed 10,000 Hamas fighters in nearly four months of bombardment and ground operations. Hamas was believed to have up to 30,000 fighters on the eve of the war.
“There have been no significant replenishment of Hamas's weapons and ammunition given that the war has been going on for more than a year,” said one of the sources. “It is obvious now that the way forward for Hamas will be high-profile attacks, suicide missions and an upsurge of attacks in the West Bank,” the source said.
“Netanyahu's declared goals are unlikely to be achieved, but he is working very hard on the undeclared ones,” said prominent military analyst Samir Ragheb, a retired army general known to be close to the government. “These include making Gaza a place unfit to sustain communities, forced evictions, and shrinking the size of Gaza by creating militarised buffer zones.”
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
The%20specs
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
A Cat, A Man, and Two Women
Junichiro Tamizaki
Translated by Paul McCarthy
Daunt Books
SNAPSHOT
While Huawei did launch the first smartphone with a 50MP image sensor in its P40 series in 2020, Oppo in 2014 introduced the Find 7, which was capable of taking 50MP images: this was done using a combination of a 13MP sensor and software that resulted in shots seemingly taken from a 50MP camera.
WHAT%20IS%20'JUICE%20JACKING'%3F
%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Juice%20jacking%2C%20in%20the%20simplest%20terms%2C%20is%20using%20a%20rogue%20USB%20cable%20to%20access%20a%20device%20and%20compromise%20its%20contents%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20The%20exploit%20is%20taken%20advantage%20of%20by%20the%20fact%20that%20the%20data%20stream%20and%20power%20supply%20pass%20through%20the%20same%20cable.%20The%20most%20common%20example%20is%20connecting%20a%20smartphone%20to%20a%20PC%20to%20both%20transfer%20data%20and%20charge%20the%20former%20at%20the%20same%20time%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20The%20term%20was%20first%20coined%20in%202011%20after%20researchers%20created%20a%20compromised%20charging%20kiosk%20to%20bring%20awareness%20to%20the%20exploit%3B%20when%20users%20plugged%20in%20their%20devices%2C%20they%20received%20a%20security%20warning%20and%20discovered%20that%20their%20phones%20had%20paired%20to%20the%20kiosk%2C%20according%20to%20US%20cybersecurity%20company%20Norton%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20While%20juice%20jacking%20is%20a%20real%20threat%2C%20there%20have%20been%20no%20known%20widespread%20instances.%20Apple%20and%20Google%20have%20also%20added%20security%20layers%20to%20prevent%20this%20on%20the%20iOS%20and%20Android%20devices%2C%20respectively%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Profile of Udrive
Date started: March 2016
Founder: Hasib Khan
Based: Dubai
Employees: 40
Amount raised (to date): $3.25m – $750,000 seed funding in 2017 and a Seed round of $2.5m last year. Raised $1.3m from Eureeca investors in January 2021 as part of a Series A round with a $5m target.
Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
- Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
Hunting park to luxury living
- Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
'Spies in Disguise'
Director: Nick Bruno and Troy Quane
Stars: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan and Roshida Jones
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Past winners of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
2016 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2015 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes-GP)
2014 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2013 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2012 Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
2011 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2010 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2009 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Madrid Open schedule
Men's semi-finals
Novak Djokovic (1) v Dominic Thiem (5) from 6pm
Stefanos Tsitsipas (8) v Rafael Nadal (2) from 11pm
Women's final
Simona Halep (3) v Kiki Bertens (7) from 8.30pm
The%20specs
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The biog
Favourite book: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Favourite holiday destination: Spain
Favourite film: Bohemian Rhapsody
Favourite place to visit in the UAE: The beach or Satwa
Children: Stepdaughter Tyler 27, daughter Quito 22 and son Dali 19
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Read more about the coronavirus
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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The figures behind the event
1) More than 300 in-house cleaning crew
2) 165 staff assigned to sanitise public areas throughout the show
3) 1,000 social distancing stickers
4) 809 hand sanitiser dispensers placed throughout the venue
Company profile
Name: Steppi
Founders: Joe Franklin and Milos Savic
Launched: February 2020
Size: 10,000 users by the end of July and a goal of 200,000 users by the end of the year
Employees: Five
Based: Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai
Financing stage: Two seed rounds – the first sourced from angel investors and the founders' personal savings
Second round raised Dh720,000 from silent investors in June this year
If you go
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Funchal via Lisbon, with a connecting flight with Air Portugal. Economy class returns cost from Dh3,845 return including taxes.
The trip
The WalkMe app can be downloaded from the usual sources. If you don’t fancy doing the trip yourself, then Explore offers an eight-day levada trails tour from Dh3,050, not including flights.
The hotel
There isn’t another hotel anywhere in Madeira that matches the history and luxury of the Belmond Reid's Palace in Funchal. Doubles from Dh1,400 per night including taxes.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs: 2017 Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn
Price, base / as tested: Dhxxx
Engine: 5.7L V8
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 395hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque: 556Nm @ 3,950rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 12.7L / 100km
