On the eve of his departure to Ankara on June 24 to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, invited journalists to his hotel in Doha to react to the expected reconciliation agreement between Israel and Turkey. "There is a regional plot to parachute someone from the outside to rule Gaza and Ramallah," he cautioned.

Although he did not name the person he believes is poised to threaten Hamas' rule in Gaza and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' rule in Ramallah, the prevailing belief is that he was alluding to former senior member of Fatah, Mohammed Dahlan. Ever since Avigdor Liberman was appointed Israel's new defense minister on May 30, rumors have been spreading about the intention to "crown" Dahlan as Palestine's next leader.

According to Palestinian and Israeli sources, in January 2015, Liberman, who then served as the foreign minister in Netanyahu's previous government, secretly met with Dahlan in Paris in a meeting brokered by their joint friend, Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff. The two reportedly discussed "Palestinian Authority affairs."

Back then, Liberman and Dahlan emphatically denied those reports, yet Abbas did not believe the denials. Then-Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen scrambled to the PA headquarters (Muqata) in Ramallah to placate the irate Palestinian president, reassuring him that the meeting had not been facilitated by or on behalf of the Israeli government.