Hamas to unveil revised charter on May 1

GAZA CITY — The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said Wednesday it is to unveil an amended version of its 1987 founding charter next week, without detailing the change.

The terrorist group, which rules the Gaza Strip, said on its website that the announcement would be made on Monday in Doha by its chief Khaled Mashaal, who lives there in exile.

Hamas’s charter advocates the destruction of the Jewish state and the establishment of an independent state in all historic Palestine.

Hamas is designated a terror group by Israel and much of the international community.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are the only Palestinian movements not to have joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which advocates peace with Israel as part of a two-state solution.

Observers say the pending changes could refer to a Jewish state within the borders it held prior to its 1967 capture of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Or it could drop references to its ties with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, its parent organization.

Relations with Cairo deteriorated after the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi by Egypt’s then army chief and now President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

They spiraled further after Sissi outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Morsi was a member.

The revamp of the Hamas charter follows leadership elections it held in February, the full results of which the movement says it will shortly make public.

It has announced that hardliner Yahya Sinwar replaced the more moderate Ismail Haniyeh as Gaza leader but has not named a successor to Mashaal, who has completed the maximum two terms in office.

Haniyeh is considered a favorite to fill the post.