Although unknown to the general public, Khalil al-Hayya is a leading figure in Hamas.
Chief negotiator of the Palestinian Islamist movement, he plays the leading role at the head of the delegation which has been discussing for several weeks, with Egyptian, Qatari and American representatives, to try to achieve a truce in the Gaza Strip.
The latter act as mediators between Hamas and the Jewish state in open war since the attack on October 7 in southern Israel, which left 1,200 dead according to Israeli counts.
According to the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, more than 30,700 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of the Israeli response ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
From religion to politics
Nicknamed Abu Osama, Khalil al-Hayya knows every corner of the Gaza Strip, where he was born in 1960. Reputedly conservative and very religious, he quickly turned to Islamic studies.
After obtaining a first degree in theology from the University of Gaza in 1983, he continued his Koranic and Sharia studies in Jordan (he obtained a decade later, in 1997, a doctorate in Islamic sciences from the University of Khartoum , in Sudan).
In parallel with his religious studies, in the 1980s he met the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassine (killed by an Israeli strike in 2004).
After being nourished by the sermons of this local religious figure, he ends up being admitted into his intimate circle.
It was therefore logical that he entered the political sphere by joining the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) founded by his mentor in 1987. He became a central figure and held several positions, including that of leader. deputy of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in the shadow of Ismaïl Haniyeh and his successor at the head of the movement in the Palestinian enclave, since 2017, Yahya Sinouar.
In 2006, Khalil al-Hayya was elected deputy for Gaza during the Palestinian legislative elections won by Hamas, before the coup of the Palestinian movement which took control of the Gaza Strip by force.
The target of assassination attempts
Like all members of Hamas, especially members of the movement's political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya automatically becomes a target for Israel.
And this literally, since he escaped several targeted assassination attempts.
The first time, in 2007, when his home was targeted by an Israeli strike in which two of his brothers and six other members of his family perished.
Khalil al-Hayya was not present in the building.
In 2014, while the Israeli army was carrying out Operation Protective Edge, a second Israeli attempt to liquidate him at home failed, the Hamas cadre having evacuated his home for fear of being targeted.
He lost two of his sons in separate attacks, always carried out by the Israeli army.
One of them was killed in 2008 while leading a squad that fired rockets at towns in the Jewish state.
“This is the tenth member of my family to receive the honor of martyrdom,” he said at the time, during the funeral of his son, Khalil al-Hayya. “It is part of the destiny of our people and, if God willing, our people will achieve victory.”
Like Yahia Sinouar, accused by Israel of being the mastermind of the October 7 attack, Khalil al-Hayya spent a number of years in Israeli jails.
He was detained for three years during the 1990s for his political activism.
A head of shadow diplomacy
In addition to the sponsorship of Sheikh Ahmad Yassine, this particular history with the Israeli enemy helps to legitimize, in the eyes of his movement and its supporters, his political rise.
In charge of both Arab and Islamic relations for Hamas and head of its media office, Khalil al-Hayya becomes essential when it comes to negotiating with the Islamist movement.
A sort of head of Hamas diplomacy, it is he who often appears on the front line when it comes to secret negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, during attempts at inter-Palestinian rapprochements.
He also became one of the faces of Hamas on the regional scene.
It is he, for example, who is going to Damascus in October 2022 to establish reconciliation between Hamas and the Syrian regime, with which relations were severed after President Bashar al-Assad's campaign of repression against the opposition from 2011.
Although perceived as one of the most radical by Tel Aviv, Khalil al-Hayya also participates in indirect discussions with Israel, on the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011 or to conclude the various truces in Gaza, such as that of 2014.
Narrow room for maneuver
The October 7 attack - which Khalil al-Hayya justified as "a response to the contempt suffered by the Palestinian people, the denial of their rights, the assault on their holy sites and the attempt to liquidate their cause" - has once again propelled him to the forefront while the mediators are trying to secure a ceasefire agreement before Ramadan.
In particular, they are seeking a compromise on a six-week truce associated with the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as well as the entry of an increased amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza, where the population is threatened with famine
But despite a certain influence within his movement, his “expertise” in the media war between Israel and Hamas and the relationships established with regional actors over several decades through negotiations, Khalil al- Hayya remains tight.
Since October 7, events clearly demonstrate that the final decision belongs to his superior in Gaza Yahya Sinouar, who holds the fate of the hostages in his hands, one of the main sticking points in the negotiations.
The France 24 summary of the week
invites you to look back at the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 application