Hamas, whose leader Yahya Shinwar was killed by the Israeli army, will be temporarily run by a committee based in Qatar until a successor is elected, two sources close to the Palestinian organization said today.

“The approach of the Hamas administration is not to appoint a successor to the deceased leader, the martyr Yahya Shinwar, before the next elections” of the movement, “if conditions permitsaid one of the sources who spoke to AFP. These elections are to be held next March.

Yahya Sinwar, who was appointed as the leader of Hamas after the assassination of Ismail Haniya last July, was killed by the Israeli army in the southern Gaza Strip.

The five-member committee appointed in August, after Haniya’s assassination, to facilitate decision-making because of the difficulty in communicating with Sinwar in Gaza, “will take over the administration of the organization,” according to one source.

The committee is based in Doha and consists of representatives of the organization for the Gaza Strip (Khalil al-Hayya), the occupied West Bank (Zaher Jabarin) and the diaspora (Khaled Meshaal), as well as the Shura Advisory Council (Mohammed Darwish) and the secretary of the political office who remains anonymous for security reasons, he added.

Another Hamas source assured that the leadership discussed the possibility of appointing a political leader without announcing his name, but ruled it out.