Hamas enters final stage of selecting new leader amid ongoing Gaza conflict

A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian liberation movement was in the final phase of selecting a new leader, with two prominent figures competing for the position.

Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shura Council of more than 80 members, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new 18-member political bureau, the official said.

Since the war in Gaza began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed several of the movement’s leaders, including two former chiefs.

“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly.

He added that the race for the group’s leadership was now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil al-Hayya.

A second Hamas source confirmed the development.

Despite a US-brokered ceasefire that entered its second phase last month, violence has continued in Gaza.

Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.

Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.

The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.

‘Renew internal legitimacy’

A third Hamas source said the new leader will serve for only “one year… a transitional period”.

Thousands of Hamas members voted to choose the council and the political bureau, the source added, without specifying how the vote was conducted.

“The primary goal of the process was to renew internal legitimacy and fill leadership vacancies,” the source added.

The new leader will need to navigate between international calls, led by the United States and Israel, for the group to disarm, and resistance to that demand from its armed wing, which fought Israeli forces in Gaza.

Hamas, however, said it would surrender its weapons to a Palestinian authority in Gaza under certain conditions.

Both Meshaal and Hayya have years of experience within the movement.

Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO.

Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.

He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.

He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.

Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoyed backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.

After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.

He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.

Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.