Kazim AlamDubbed by the Western media as the “Ghost of al-Qassam” for maintaining a low profile, 55-year-old Ezzedin Al-Haddad has emerged as the de facto leader of Hamas in Gaza.
Rarely photographed, Al-Haddad is an experienced fighter who has survived “several Israeli assassination attempts”. He rose to the top position in the resistance group after Israel assassinated Mohammed Sinwar in May 2025.
“He is a tough, stubborn fighter… He is a respected and loved person,” Yousef Alhelou, a Palestinian political analyst, tells TRT World.
Al-Haddad is the third person in seven months to lead Hamas in Gaza, where Israel has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, over the last 21 months.
He is known to have played a key role in Hamas’s incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023 – an event that Israelis consider their “worst defeat in history”. He also recruits members for Hamas and oversees the captivity of Israeli hostages.
Alhelou describes Al-Haddad as “one of the well-known commanders in northern Gaza” who has the reputation of being a “smart person”.
“That’s why he easily recruits new fighters,” he adds.
Rising through Hamas ranks
Born in Gaza City in 1970, Al-Haddad joined a nascent Hamas in 1987. He started as a foot soldier in Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, and quickly rose through the ranks to become a ‘platoon commander’, a ‘battalion commander’, and finally a ‘brigade leader’.
He has been a “crucial link” among Hamas commanders. His close relationship with Yahya Sinwar, a former Hamas leader assassinated in October 2024, deepened his influence within the resistance group.
He also played a significant role in Hamas’s internal security unit, al-Majd, where he rooted out people suspected of collaborating with Israel.
“His military style is different from his predecessors. He has a big influence in the political leadership,” Alhelou says, while referring to the political wing of the group that manages governance, diplomacy, and public relations in Gaza, where Hamas has been in power since 2007.
With a $750,000 Israeli bounty on his head and surviving at least six assassination attempts since 2008, Al-Haddad is one of Israel’s high-priority targets.
‘Planner’ of the October 7 incursion
Al-Haddad’s profile within Hamas grew after his central role in planning and executing the October 7 incursion that Palestinians call Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
A day before the operation, he called a secret meeting with battalion commanders. He distributed written orders, emphasising the abduction of Israeli soldiers and live documentation of the assault. Hamas abducted 251 Israelis on October 7, 2023.
Israel’s demand that Hamas release those hostages – about 20 of them are reportedly still alive in captivity – all at once to secure a halt in Tel Aviv’s war on Gaza is at the heart of the ongoing negotiations.
In a January 2025 Al Jazeera interview, Al-Haddad claimed Hamas launched the October 7 attack after uncovering Israeli plans for a large-scale Gaza offensive, allegedly accessed through a breach of the servers of Unit 8200, the Israeli equivalent of the US National Security Agency.
However, Palestinian writer and political analyst Kamel Hawwash warns against crediting a single Hamas leader for the October 7 incursion.
“He is part of Hamas. Don't forget that it was a team effort. It wasn't an individual’s doing,” he tells TRT World.
By the time Al-Haddad assumed the top role in Hamas two months ago, the group had suffered many losses in Gaza, where Israel claims to have killed 20,000 of its estimated 35,000 pre-war fighters.
Despite this, Hamas remains Gaza’s dominant resistance force, with Al-Haddad wielding veto power over ceasefire negotiations.
Personal losses
Al-Haddad’s eldest son, Suhaib, and grandson were killed in a January 17, 2025, airstrike, followed by the death of his second son in April.
A former Israeli hostage, who met Al-Haddad five times during captivity, described the Hebrew-speaking leader as calm, even ordering the return of a book left behind by a hostage.
However, after his son’s death, Al-Haddad’s demeanour grew colder and more bitter, something the Israeli hostage believed was a reflection of the personal toll that the war had taken on him.
But Hawwash says nearly all Hamas leaders have faced assassination attempts on their family members for years, a phenomenon that only gained momentum after the October 7 incursion.
It is the belief in their cause that drives Hamas fighters to fight the occupation, and not personal traumas, Hawwash insists. However, he adds that losing one’s loved ones certainly makes fighters “more determined” to retaliate against Israeli aggression.
Western reports say that Al-Haddad is more pragmatic than the uncompromising Sinwar brothers. He pushed for a January 2024 hostage-prisoner swap and sought further releases to extend a ceasefire that eventually collapsed in March.
He holds veto power over ceasefire and hostage negotiations, insisting on a full Israeli withdrawal and an end to the war before releasing remaining hostages, a key point in the ceasefire talks currently taking place in Doha.
Western news sources quoted Arab intelligence officials as saying that Al-Haddad’s openness to discussing Hamas’s disarmament marks a significant departure from the position of his predecessors.
Hawwash takes the reports of Al-Haddad being more pragmatic than his immediate predecessors with a pinch of salt. None of the Hamas leaders has been willing to cede ground on fundamental issues like an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, he insists.
Al-Haddad is looking for a deal that ends Israeli aggression, frees as many Palestinian hostages from Israeli jails as possible, and paves the way for rebuilding efforts, Hawwash says.
“These are all goals that any leader of Hamas would want. I don't see him taking any different approach,” he says.
