The rumors have been circulating inside and outside Gaza for a long time. Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, is supposedly in hot water in his new abode in Qatar and is looking for another place to live. Al-Monitor correspondent Adnan Abu Amer talked with the spokesman of the movement’s political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, who denied the rumor and claimed that this is only propaganda aimed to harm Hamas. 

Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas member who has lived in Cairo ever since Hamas officials abandoned Damascus, also wrote on his Facebook page that Meshaal continues to live in Qatar. Marzouk added that no limitations are placed on Meshaal, hinting at stubborn rumors that Meshaal has been under house arrest ever since Qatar’s change of government. It is interesting that Marzouk and al-Rishq were forced to deny rumors in the name of the head of the political bureau, when Meshaal actually lives very close to Al Jazeera’s network studios. Meanwhile, Meshaal's face was not seen and his voice was not heard [on the screen] for months.

Meshaal's disappearance off the radar provides another opportunity for Hamas leaders in Gaza, who disagree with Meshaal’s path and oppose his leadership, to verbally attack him. Some of them accuse him of being responsible for one of the largest crises faced by Hamas since its inception. According to his detractors, Meshaal abandoned one of the sacred principles of the organization since its founding: the collaboration of all the movement heads when making decisions. Meshaal began to make decisions on his own, and caused erosion in the position of the Shura Council that, in the past, had been the supreme authority for all decisions. Meshaal only introduced his close associates into the council, and ignited a severe dispute with the heads of the movement in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas sources I talked with have long since raised the argument that Meshaal no longer has an excuse to continue to live in another Arab state besides Palestine — in other words, Gaza. “Enough, this is a different era,” said an official from the movement. “It’s about time that he return home to his nation and, like everyone else, feel what it’s like to live in Gaza.” He brought the example of Imad al-Almi, one of the movement’s leaders, who decided to return and settle with his family in Gaza, after the movement’s offices were closed in Damascus.