Hamas official says group in final stage of choosing new chief

A senior Hamas official tells AFP that the terror group is 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, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.

Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the 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.

“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 says, speaking on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak publicly.

He adds that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Mashaal and Khalil al-Hayya.

A second Hamas source confirms the development within the organization, which led a devastating attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and subsequently fought a two-year sparked by the assault.

Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a US-based organization.

Mashaal, 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 enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Izz a-din 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.

Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.

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.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.