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.

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.

Attacks on Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis this week have frustrated Pakistan and threaten to draw Islamabad into the conflict, complicating any future role it may have as a mediator between ​the United States and Iran, Reuters reported.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan, which helped broker an interim deal last month in the war between Washington and Tehran, signed a mutual defence agreement with Saudi Arabia last ‌year and thousands of Pakistani soldiers have been deployed to the kingdom, alongside a squadron of fighter jets.

Pakistan had already voiced anger about Iranian strikes on Saudi Arabia earlier this year, but regional analysts and officials said the attacks this week had pushed Islamabad’s frustration with Iran to a new level as they raised the prospect of a new Saudi-Houthi conflict.

The Houthis fired missiles at Saudi Arabia after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under their control on Monday. The cross-border fire pierced ​a four-year truce but has so far been contained to a single incident.

“Our top civil and military leaders have conveyed to Iran at the highest level that the attacks on Saudi ​Arabia are attacks on Pakistan,” a Pakistani official told Reuters. “It is our red line.”

The source and other Pakistani officials interviewed for this article spoke on condition ⁠of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly.

“Pakistan wasn’t anticipating that the tensions will rise so suddenly,” said Muhammad Amir Rana, a Pakistani security analyst.

Pakistan’s frustration appears rooted in growing concerns that Houthi ​involvement may be more likely to draw Pakistan into the conflict than the Iranian missile strikes were earlier this year. Pakistani soldiers are deployed near the Saudi border with Yemen, two Pakistani officials said, increasing ​their direct exposure.

There are also concerns in Islamabad that a Houthi-led escalation could disrupt shipping in the Red Sea, an important trade route that Pakistan and many other countries depend on. A widening conflict there could be more difficult to contain and could target Saudi interests in a way that forces Pakistan to intervene militarily under the terms of its mutual defence pact.

Ghulam Mustafa, a retired Pakistani general, said that for now “Pakistan’s top leaders are still engaged in appeasing all stakeholders.” But ​he cautioned that this could change “if the Houthis expand the radius of their attacks in Saudi Arabia.”

MOUNTING CONCERNS

This week’s tensions between Yemen’s Houthis and Saudi Arabia have fueled broader concerns in Islamabad about Iran.

Two ​Pakistani government officials said growing divisions within the Iranian leadership have been watched with concern in Islamabad.

The views and objectives of Iran’s political leaders, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, ‌increasingly differ ⁠from those of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pakistani officials said.

“The military seems to be dominating the decision making in Iran,” said Muhammad Ali, a Pakistani defence analyst, adding that this is increasingly “being recognised in Islamabad.”

The recent escalation contributed to the postponement of a visit by an Iranian delegation to Islamabad earlier this week that had not been announced publicly, two Pakistani officials said.

The delegation, led by Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, arrived in Islamabad two days later than planned, on Wednesday, the officials said, with the talks expected to include conversations about the U.S.-Iran deal.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry and the country’s military media wing did not immediately respond to ​a request for comment.

In a briefing on Thursday, ​foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Pakistan calls “on ⁠all parties to exercise maximum restraint” and that “there is no alternative to sustained engagement, dialogue, and diplomacy.”

PAKISTANI DOUBLE ROLE

As Pakistan seeks a more prominent regional role, analysts say it will also increasingly face the challenges that come with such exposure.

When Pakistan’s defence deal with Saudi Arabia was announced last September, it was widely ​seen as a sign that Gulf Arab states were growing increasingly wary about the reliability of the United States as a security guarantor and ​looking to Pakistan and other countries ⁠as a possible alternative.

But Pakistan is deeply reliant on Middle Eastern countries for oil and gas. The tensions around the Strait of Hormuz disrupted Pakistan’s supply routes, and the government imposed emergency measures including early business closures to prevent a fuel shortage.

Mediating between the U.S. and Iran has been at least as much about reopening these supply routes as it has been about diplomatic influence, according to analysts and Pakistani officials.

“Yes, there is frustration, ⁠but that doesn’t ​mean that we are abandoning this project,” one official said, referring to the mediation. “We have invested a lot in it, and ​we have an interest in keeping it afloat.”

Pakistan has rarely appeared closer to having to choose a side than this week, however.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest for the war to end,” said a different Pakistani source aware of the mediation. “But if Saudi calls ​us in, we will stand by them and there is no doubt about that.”