Meshal Won’t Seek Reelection to Hamas Post

Hamas chief Khaled Meshal will not seek reelection as the organization’s political leader in forthcoming elections, he told a meeting in Khartoum three weeks ago.

There has been a widening rift between Hamas leaders in Gaza and those abroad. Palestinian analysts say Meshal recently realized that the Gaza leadership was determined to prevent his reappointment and decided instead to preempt them and quit.

However, the move may be intended to exert pressure on the Gaza leadership, which is demanding an increase in its power, and objects to the significant agenda changes advanced by Meshal.

The controversy between Hamas’ leaders in Gaza and abroad focuses on the approach to Israel, the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, establishing a Palestinian state and, above all, the relations with Syria and Iran.

Hamas’ Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and his men decided to prove to the organization’s leaders who recently fled Damascus they could no longer impose their decisions on Gaza.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO