Gaza, Feb 13 (IANS): The Islamic Hamas movement has chosen an ex-prisoner as the new leader in the Gaza Strip, the media reported.

Yehya al-Sinwar was elected as the chief of the movement in Gaza, and Khalil el-Hayya as his deputy, in secret balloting held in Gaza, the West Bank, among prisoners and members abroad, Efe news reported.

He replaces Ismail Haniyeh, a former Prime Minister in the territory's Hamas-run government.

Sinwar was released from an Israeli jail in October 2011 in an Egyptian-brokered prisoner exchange agreement with Israel for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured five years earlier.

He was jailed for four life terms by Israel in 1989 for a series of offences, including murder and kidnapping.

Sinwar, 55, was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza and is a founder of the armed wing, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. The militia has thousands of fighters and is believed to have rebuilt a considerable arsenal of weaponry since the last war with Israel, BBC reported.

It has also carried out scores of attacks with suicide bombers and fired thousands of rockets and missiles across the border since the mid-1990s.

The US added Sinwar to its terrorism blacklist in September 2015.

Israeli officials said Sinwar's appointment did not change anything other than trading "one extremist with another".

Hamas carried out the confidential internal elections over two weeks.