Hamas chief discusses Palestinian election drive with Qatari emir in Doha

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha on Monday, and discussed efforts to hold Palestinian Authority elections, the terror group said.

Haniyeh arrived in Qatar on Sunday after spending approximately a week in Turkey.

“A discussion was held about developments regarding the Palestinian elections file and what the movement has done to remove the obstacles to them taking place,” read a report posted on Hamas’s website.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly in late September that he would call general elections in the near future.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, responded by declaring it is ready to participate in elections. The PA has not held parliamentary or presidential elections since 2006 and 2005, respectively.

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Abbas has since met several times with the head of the PA Central Elections Committee, Hanna Nasser, to discuss the possibility of holding legislative and presidential elections, but has yet to set dates for such votes.

Previous initiatives to hold votes were scuttled amid squabbling between Hamas and Abbas rival Fatah organization, which dominates the PA.

The PA and Hamas have been at loggerheads since the latter ousted the former from Gaza in 2007. Multiple attempts to reconcile the two and bring the West Bank and Gaza under a single government have failed.

Some analysts have expressed skepticism that the PA would hold elections any time soon.

“The possibility that elections will take place is very low,” Jihad Harb, a Ramallah-based Palestinian analyst, said in a phone call last week. “I would say that it stands around 20 percent.”

In addition to Haniyeh, the Hamas delegation in Qatar was made up of several senior leaders in the terror group, including Saleh al-Arouri, Moussa Abu Marzouk, Izzat al-Rishq and Maher Salah. Arouri, based in Turkey, is thought to have masterminded a number of attacks on Israelis.

Since Hamas took over Gaza, Qatar has provided hundreds of million of dollars in aid to the beleaguered Strip. In the past year alone, the Gulf country has paid for fuel to power the coastal enclave’s sole power plant, provided small cash grants for impoverished families, funded a United Nations-supervised temporary employment program and backed other projects.

Mohammed al-Emadi, a Qatari envoy who maintains contacts with Hamas, the PA, and Israel, has frequently visited Gaza and met Haniyeh there.

Before Qatar, Hanieyh visited Turkey, where he met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, among the group’s staunchest supporters, and several senior Hamas officials based outside of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV reported Sunday that Haniyeh, who has not ventured outside of Gaza or Egypt since 2017, will be attending the Kuala Lumpur Summit in Malaysia on Wednesday.

The conference will “delve into seeking new solutions for problems affecting the Islamic world,” the Malaysian state news agency Bernama reported on Friday.

Al Thani, Erdogan, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani “are among the notable Islamic leaders expected to join the summit,” Bernama added.

The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported earlier that Haniyeh would also visit, Russia, Lebanon, Mauritania, and Kuwait, citing an unnamed Palestinian source.