Hamas is expected to elect a new leader this month, filling the role left vacant since Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in 2024.
– Khalil Al-Hayya and Khaled Meshaal are seen as frontrunners for the helm at a vital moment for the militant Islamist group.
– Both men reside in Qatar and sit on a five-man council that has run Hamas since Israel killed Sinwar.
– His predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated by Israel while on a visit to Iran in 2024.
– The election process has already begun.
– The leader is chosen in a secret ballot by Hamas’ Shoura Council, a 50-member body that includes Hamas members in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and exile.
– A deputy leader will also be elected to replace Saleh Al-Arouri, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon in 2024.
– Hamas faces some of the toughest challenges since it was founded in 1987. While fighting has largely abated in Gaza since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in October, Israel still holds almost half the coastal enclave, attacks continue, and conditions for Gaza’s 2 million people remain dire.
– Hamas has also drawn criticism within Gaza because of the heavy toll inflicted by the war, with much of the enclave reduced to ruins and more than 71,000 people killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
– Hamas has so far refused to disarm, saying the question of armed resistance is a matter for wider debate among Palestinian factions and that it would be ready to surrender its weapons to a future Palestinian state, an outcome Israel has ruled out.
– Born in Gaza, Hayya was among Hamas leaders targeted by an Israeli airstrike on Qatar in September.
– Meshaal previously led Hamas for almost two decades. Israeli agents tried to assassinate him in Jordan in 1997 by injecting him with poison.