Sinwar said to reject Khaled Mashal as new Hamas leader

As consultations are ongoing inside Hamas to choose a successor to slain politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, the terror group’s leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar is said to be opposed to the appointment of Khaled Mashaal, one of the two frontrunners to the title.

The Saudi-owned Alhadath news channel reports that Hamas leaders held a meeting yesterday in Qatar, and the message Sinwar conveyed was that he would prefer someone with a stronger relation with the Iranian leadership.

Haniyeh’s successor will be tapped by Hamas’s politburo and by its Shura Council, a secret consultative body comprising religious and political figures.

Pundits believe that the two frontrunners are Mashaal, a founding member of Hamas’s politburo who helmed the terror group between 2004 and 2017, and Khalil al-Hayya, a powerful figure within Hamas who was close to the slain leader.