Ismail Haniyeh re-appointed as head of Hamas

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Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political bureau since 2017, was returned to his post after an “internal electoral process”, the Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip announced on Monday morning.

Hamas confirmed early Monday, August 2, the unopposed re-election of its leader Ismail Haniyeh as head of the ruling Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip, which has just emerged from a new war with Israel.

Sources on Sunday suggested the re-election of Ismail Haniyeh as head of Hamas’s political bureau. Early Monday, Hamas issued a statement confirming that its electoral commission had “completed oversight of the stages of the internal electoral process,” which ended with the reappointment of Ismail Haniyeh as head of the political bureau.

According to Hamas, “tens of thousands” of members of this Islamist group, which has waged four wars against the Hebrew state since 2008, the last of which was last May, took part in this internal ballot without a known opponent of Ismail Haniyeh.

Considered a pragmatist, Ismail Haniyeh, who divides his time between Qatar and Turkey, was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017, succeeding Khaled Mechaal, who had led the movement since 1996.

After the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, the most recent to date, Ismail Haniyeh had however already taken the head of a Palestinian government of unity. And he had pledged to work for the creation of a Palestinian state “in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with Jerusalem as its capital”, going against the tide of the official speech of Hamas which, then, did not recognize these borders.

Hamas vs. Fatah

But Hamas and Fatah embarked on a virtual civil war in 2007 which led to the de facto division of the Palestinian Territories with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on one side and the occupied West Bank under the rule. cut from the Palestinian Authority, on the other.

Last March, Hamas had already re-elected Yahya Sinouar as head of the movement’s political bureau for the Gaza Strip alone. According to sources within the movement, five candidates were then vying for this post.

The election of the head of the entire political bureau of this movement, which has a powerful military wing and considered terrorist by the United States and the European Union, had however been postponed due to the war with Israel in May. last.

With AFP