New Hamas chief to be announced soon: officials
Terror group's revised charter to be released on Monday; Ismail Haniya expected to become its leader
GAZA CITY — The new leadership of Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas will be announced in the coming days, officials said Sunday, while it also prepared to unveil a new version of its charter.
Ismail Haniya, until recently head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, said the results of internal elections will be announced “in the coming days.”
A high-ranking Hamas official told AFP that the new leadership will be announced before May 15.
The official said Haniya is likely to be named the new head of the movement, replacing Khaled Mashaal who lives in Doha in exile and has completed the maximum two terms in office.
Hamas runs the Gaza Strip, while the Palestinian Authority dominated by president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party controls the West Bank.
On Monday in Qatar, Hamas will unveil a supplementary charter that will formally accept the idea of a state in the territories captured by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.
Some analysts say the move is a bid to ease Hamas’s international isolation.
The original 1988 charter will not be dropped, just supplemented, and there will be no recognition of Israel, as demanded by the international community.