Hamas leadership run-off expected between Meshaal and al-Hayya
Israeli assassinations of several key leaders force Hamas to find new head, a process expected to be completed next week Hamas is set to hold
Israeli assassinations of several key leaders force Hamas to find new head, a process expected to be completed next week Hamas is set to hold a decisive run-off election next week to choose its new political bureau chief. This will complete a complex transition process initiated to fill leadership vacancies left by Israel’s assassinations of some of the group’s top figures, such as Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. The highly anticipated vote represents a critical juncture for the Palestinian group as it attempts to renew itself, even as it faces the ongoing Israeli war. According to a Hamas source, the internal ballot to select a chairman has narrowed down to what is likely to be a close contest between former Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal and former deputy chairman Khalil al-Hayya. The winner will replace the current transitional council, which took over following Sinwar’s assassination in Gaza in October 2024. The new leader will then continue until 2027, when new elections are due to be held. Under Hamas’s internal rules, a candidate must secure an absolute majority of 50 percent plus one of the votes within the Shura Council – the group’s consultative body – to win the leadership outright. Because neither candidate achieved that threshold during the initial rounds, a run-off election has been scheduled for next week to break the deadlock. The source explained that, according to a 2021 framework, the top two leadership positions must include a representative of the Gaza region – one of the three geographical areas Hamas is divided into, with the other two being the West Bank and the diaspora. Therefore, if al-Hayya, who represents Gaza, does not secure the leadership in the run-off, he is expected to be positioned as deputy political chief. Change in process A second Hamas source told Al Jazeera that the group has been forced to abandon its typical voting process, which involves participation from the entire grassroots base.
Instead, only a narrower group has been able to vote in the political bureau elections, in order to complete the current electoral term, which began in 2021. The source explained that security challenges imposed by the war, alongside the urgent priority of filling vacancies in the group’s Shura Council resulting from the deaths of several members, had delayed the leadership selection. Despite those challenges, the source dismissed reports of a shift towards a clandestine or collective leadership structure, asserting that the identity of the newly elected chief will be formally and publicly announced once the votes are finalised. Both the Hamas sources confirmed that regardless of next week’s outcome, preparations for a fully comprehensive, grassroots election across all three traditional regions are scheduled to begin next year, subject to prevailing security conditions. Palestinian political analyst Abdullah Aqrabawi told Al Jazeera that those internal dynamics can no longer be viewed as the closed-door affairs of a local group. Since the events of October 7, 2023, Hamas has emerged as a central regional actor whose decisions reverberate far beyond the Palestinian arena, directly shaping the geopolitics of the entire Middle East. Consequently, Aqrabawi noted, the transition of Hamas’s leadership has become a matter of intense regional and international scrutiny. Institutional resilience The current electoral framework stems from Hamas’s internal general elections in early 2021. Haniyeh was chosen as the overall head of the political bureau, while Sinwar was re-elected to lead the Gaza Strip and Meshaal was selected to head the movement’s diaspora wing abroad. This institutional structure faced unprecedented disruption following the outbreak of the war, which saw Israel target multiple tiers of Hamas’s political and military commands. In July 2024, political chief Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, prompting the group’s Shura Council to name Sinwar as his overall successor in August 2024.
The BriefWire