Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is expected to return to Gaza in the near future — about five months after he left the Gaza Strip with most of the members of his family for Qatar. He will be coming back to keep a close eye on the election process for the Shura Council, the highest council of the movement and the one that determines its policy. It is the Shura Council that elects the political bureau members and the leader of the movement. Haniyeh is the leading candidate to replace Hamas political bureau head Khaled Meshaal, who announced last summer that he would not run for leadership of the movement but would continue to remain a foot soldier in its ranks. Meshaal understands that Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, opposes the continuation of his tenure, and it would be impossible for him to be re-elected with such a determined opposition.
The elections for the Shura Council are confidential. The number of candidates, their identity and the voting process are all secret; even the number of delegates is well-guarded. This is because of their concern that Israel will try to harm those involved.
Haniyeh left the Strip and moved to Qatar because he believed that he could gain control over the West Bank and Gaza voters only if he were outside of besieged Gaza. Then, he thought, he’d overcome all the obstacles on the path to the hoped-for appointment to head the Hamas movement.
Haniyeh, who had been the armor-bearer of the movement’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was convinced that his appointment would be a no-brainer. He was sure that he would be Meshaal’s successor, in effect Yassin’s natural heir. Both Yassin and Haniyeh hail from the Shati refugee camp, and both are the movement’s own flesh and blood. More so, Haniyeh lived most of his life in the Strip, while Meshaal lived many years outside the territories. Meshaal visited Gaza only once, after 2012’s Operation Pillar of Defense, when he assumed the stance of the winner and announced that he would run again for leadership of the movement — contradicting an earlier statement he made of intentions to leave the race. Then, with the support of Ahmed Jabari, the military commander of Hamas, Meshaal won another term of office, but just barely.
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