Hamas has named Khalil Al-Hayya as its overall leader, according to a statement from the Palestinian militant group on Monday, in a move an analyst says could signal a tougher stance by the group towards disarmament calls, Reuters reported.

Hayya replaces Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in combat with Israeli forces in October 2024 as Hamas fought a full-scale, two-year war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator, has become an increasingly central figure in the leadership of Hamas since the deaths of Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Iran in July 2024.

He is seen as more hardline than Khaled Meshaal, the head of the group’s office in exile and the other frontrunner for the leadership.

Hayya was among top Hamas officials targeted in 2025 in an Israeli attack in Doha, where he is based, Israeli officials told Reuters.

The militant Islamist group faces some of the toughest challenges since it was founded in 1987, battered by two years of war ignited by its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and facing international demands to disarm.

While fighting has abated in Gaza since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in October, Israel still holds more than 60% of the coastal enclave, attacks continue, and conditions for Gaza’s 2 million people remain dire.

Israel says it targets Hamas and other Gaza militants who pose an imminent threat. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately comment on Hayya’s selection.

On Monday, an Israeli strike killed at least three Palestinians driving in a vehicle in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medics said. The Israeli military told Reuters it struck a militant in the area, without providing details.

Later on Monday, medics told Reuters that three people were killed after an Israeli strike on a shelter in a hospital in Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip. Most of the wounded from the evening strike were children, the medics said.

There was no immediate comment from the ⁠Israeli military.

The deaths add to a toll of more than 1,150 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since the October ceasefire, according to Gaza health officials. Four Israeli soldiers were killed by militants in Gaza over the same period.

Hamas does not usually disclose its losses.

Since Sinwar was killed, Hamas has resorted to a five-member higher council that included Hayya and Meshaal, in addition to three other officials, read the report.

The election of a Hamas chief is a lengthy process that began in January and was interrupted by the wars in Iran and Lebanon and ⁠continuing Israeli military operations in Gaza.

The selection is made by a 50-member council made up of Hamas members in Gaza, the occupied West Bank — including Israeli prisons — and those in exile.

Palestinian political analyst Reham Owda said Hayya’s victory is a message that Hamas remains committed to armed struggle, rejects disarmament under any conditions, and intends to rebuild its military strength while preserving its alliance with Iran ⁠and the so-called “Axis of Resistance.”

“This indicates that negotiations related to disarmament are likely to face significant difficulties and obstacles,” Owda told Reuters.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza demands Hamas’ disarmament and Israeli military withdrawals. It foresees the enclave being run by a technocratic Palestinian administration overseen by Trump’s Board of Peace.

But talks between Hamas, mediators, Egypt, Qatar, ⁠Turkey and Trump’s Board of Peace envoys have so far failed to reach a broad agreement to end the conflict.

Hamas has drawn criticism within Gaza because of the heavy toll inflicted by the war, with much of the enclave reduced to ruins and more than 73,000 people killed, according to Gaza health authorities.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 251 others in their October 7, 2023, attack.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday they had struck U.S. military assets across the Middle East after another night of U.S. bombardment of Iranian cities, part of a ‌cycle of attacks that has all but wrecked an interim ceasefire agreement, Reuters reported.

Oil prices briefly jumped above $90 a barrel after renewed disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, while U.S. President Donald Trump defended the latest strikes as retaliation for American military deaths, despite mounting political pressure at home from rising gasoline prices.

The conflict also escalated with attacks on desalination facilities, raising the prospect of water shortages across parts of the Gulf and opening a new front in a war that is increasingly threatening civilian infrastructure.

Yet even as both sides traded strikes, ​Tehran and Washington separately signalled they had not ruled out a return to negotiations.

Trump said the latest U.S. strikes were carried out “in honor of the … great patriots”, referring to as many as three U.S. service ​members killed in recent Iranian attacks.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two oil tankers had “exploded” and were immobilised after attempting to transit the strait via ⁠an “unsafe” route. On Sunday, the IRGC had said two ships were involved in an “accident” in the same area. It was unclear whether the two incidents were related.

Reuters could not immediately verify the incident. The IRGC statement gave no ​details about the vessels or any casualties.

Separately, a vessel was struck by an unknown projectile off Oman’s coast, overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said. The vessel remains adrift but the crew are safe, ​it said.

In a statement, U.S. Central Command said its ninth consecutive night of strikes against Iran aimed at “degrading” the country’s ability to attack commercial vessels in the strait’s vital shipping lanes. It gave no further details.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said U.S. missiles had struck several Iranian cities early on Monday.

Explosions were reported in Tabriz, Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini. One person was killed and several others wounded southwest of Tabriz, according to state news agency IRNA.

The IRGC said it targeted U.S. aircraft at Jordan’s Aqaba airport ​with ballistic missiles, as well as military assets at Kuwait’s Al-Adiri camp and Ali Al Salem Air Base, and positions in Syria.

Sirens sounded in Bahrain on Monday morning, the interior ministry said, while Kuwait’s army said it intercepted ​hostile drones during an Iranian attack.

Kuwait’s government said a desalination plant had been attacked on Sunday for the second day running, causing a fire, in what it called a direct strike on vital civilian infrastructure.

Desalination facilities supply most drinking water in many ‌Gulf states, ⁠serving tens of millions of people in one of the world’s driest regions.

Iran, which accused the United States on Saturday of hitting one of its own desalination plants, has repeatedly said it would target such plants in Gulf states in retaliation for U.S. attacks on its energy infrastructure. The U.S. did not confirm that it had struck an Iranian desalination facility.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed that the United States would continue to target Iran as long as it attacked global commercial shipping.

“As long as Iran insists on controlling an international waterway, we’re gonna have to respond to that. The United States always remains open to a diplomatic solution,” Rubio said.

Iran’s Foreign ​Ministry signalled that Tehran also did not rule out ​a return to diplomacy despite the escalating violence, when ⁠asked if the door to talks with the U.S. was now closed.

“Diplomacy is a tool through which we pursue our national interests, just like war,” spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday.

Baghaei also said Iran’s interior minister would hold talks on Monday in Pakistan – the main mediator between Tehran and Washington since the start of the conflict – though he ​said it was a visit focused on bilateral issues.

The conflict, which began when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, seeking to disable Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs ​and weaken its regional proxies, has ⁠killed thousands of people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, Reuters reported.

U.S. gasoline pump prices crossed the $4 a gallon mark on Monday, a price point of financial pain for households. They had dipped below that threshold in June after the U.S. and Iran signed their memorandum of understanding to end the war.

Trump’s Republican Party faces the risk of a voter backlash in midterm congressional elections in November.

The U.S. military said two service personnel died in Jordan on Friday and that a ⁠third was missing ​in action. On Sunday, Central Command said that “unidentified remains” had been found at the site of Friday’s attack and that “an examination process to ​verify the remains is ongoing”.

Trump said the campaign against Iran was achieving its aims.

“Iran has been very, very badly damaged… We control the strait. They don’t control anything… But we hit them very hard again tonight. And we did that in honor of the — probably three, it’s probably ​three, as opposed to two — great patriots.”

The United States launched new strikes against Iran, Central Command said, after it earlier announced that two U.S. military personnel were killed in Jordan and another was ​missing following an Iranian attack.

Before the strikes on Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader said Washington would pay for “seeking to escalate the conflict,” Reuters reported.

Central Command said in a statement that the airstrikes began ‌at 6 p.m. ET (2200 GMT), at President Donald Trump’s direction.

“The strikes are designed to further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces who launched attacks against American service members in Jordan last night,” it said, without providing further details.

Iran’s Mehr news agency said the U.S. carried out an attack near Sirik in southern Iran, adding that no casualties or damage to infrastructure have been reported.

The U.S. and Iran have intensified attacks since an interim ​ceasefire deal signed a month ago fell apart last week, raising the possibility of a return to all-out war.

Central Command said the two deaths occurred on Friday and that a third U.S. service ​member was missing in action. The announcement brought the number of U.S. service members killed since the war began to 16, while more than 420 have been ⁠wounded.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve.”

Iran appeared to target Saudi Arabia as well as other U.S. Gulf allies and Jordan on Saturday after U.S. attacks on Iranian bridges, power facilities ​and other infrastructure.

In a written statement carried by the official social media accounts of Iran’s supreme leader and Iranian state media, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said U.S. actions have shown that Trump’s signature was “utterly worthless and ​devoid of credibility.”

The statement warned of “even heavier costs and further humiliation” for the United States. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Khamenei’s whereabouts remain a mystery.

The conflict, which began when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February hoping to disable its missile programme and its regional proxies, has led to major disruption to energy supplies, fears over global inflation and a battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

IRANIAN STRIKES REPORTED IN KUWAIT, BAHRAIN, JORDAN, SAUDI ARABIA

On ​Saturday, Kuwait came under sustained attack, with the armed forces saying they had intercepted Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and that some firefighters and oil sector workers had been injured while responding to the attacks.

Iran’s IRGC ​said it had struck a U.S. military support centre at Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan and destroyed a radar facility at Ali Al Salem Air Base. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation later said one of its oil facilities had been hit in “repeated Iranian attacks”, causing ‌significant damage ⁠and some injuries, according to the state news agency.

The IRGC also targeted a site in Bahrain where U.S. combat aircraft were gathered at Sheikh Isa Air Base and an intelligence data centre, Iranian media said.

The Guards also destroyed at least two U.S. fighter aircraft and three other aircraft during a missile and drone attack early on Saturday on the U.S. base in Al Azraq, Jordan, according to Iranian state TV.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

Saudi Arabia’s early warning system issued alerts early on Saturday urging residents of Al-Kharj and Yanbu to seek shelter. Al-Kharj, east of Riyadh, is home to a military base that hosts U.S. troops, while Yanbu, on the Red Sea, ​has a key oil export terminal.

Two people briefed on ​the matter said an Iranian missile attack, the ⁠first on Saudi Arabia in more than three months, had triggered the alerts. The government media office did not respond to a request for comment.

The IRGC made no mention of any attack on Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel alert for Americans abroad on Saturday, citing heightened tensions in the Middle East “with the ​potential for unforeseen escalation.” The advisory said flight cancellations and periodic airspace closures could disrupt travel.

BATTLE FOR CONTROL OF THE STRAIT

Earlier, U.S. Central Command said it had ​hit Iranian surveillance sites, military ⁠logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage and maritime capabilities.

U.S. airstrikes early on Saturday killed three people and wounded eight others in the southern Hormozgan province, which borders the Strait of Hormuz, while two bridges and a road tunnel were damaged, Iranian state TV reported.

Iran’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that 50 people had been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes on the country over the past three weeks.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei accused the United States of seeking ⁠control over the ​Strait of Hormuz, which usually handles around one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

Both sides have taken aim at shipping traffic, with ​the U.S. saying it is enforcing a naval blockade and Iran saying it targets vessels violating its rules on navigating the strait.

The European Union and Gulf states called on Iran to immediately and unconditionally halt all attacks and interference with maritime navigation and to keep the ​strait open without conditions or fees, according to a joint statement reported by Saudi state TV on Saturday.