Media coverage
Mada Masr · 2026-07-27
Mada Masr examines what Khalil al-Hayya’s election as Hamas leader means. Omar Shaban says Gazans find it strange that factions hold internal elections while the public has had no vote since 2005, reads the choice of al-Hayya over Khaled Meshaal as proof that Gaza still decides inside Hamas, and says the new mandate could unlock decisions on a ceasefire, disarmament or reconciliation with Mahmoud Abbas.
Mada Masr examines what Khalil al-Hayya’s election as Hamas leader means. Omar Shaban says Gazans find it strange that factions hold internal elections while the public has had no vote since 2005, reads the choice of al-Hayya over Khaled Meshaal as proof that Gaza still decides inside Hamas, and sa…
Amid the slow pace of travel procedures for war patients and wounded in the Gaza Strip to receive treatment abroad, Palestinian journalists organized a solidarity vigil with their colleagues among the sick and wounded in front of the Journalists’ Syndicate tent in western Gaza City last Wednesday, demanding the acceleration of their medical evacuation, amid the collapse of the health system in the Strip and while thousands await their turn to travel for treatment.
Hamas entrusted Khalil al-Hayya with the position of head of its Political Bureau, succeeding the former head, Yahya Sinwar, whom Israel assassinated about a year and a half ago, just a few months after the assassination of the former head, Ismail Haniyeh. Mada Masr spoke with Palestinian writers and political analysts to understand the movement’s insistence on holding its internal elections and the impact of this on the files of ceasefire negotiations, the future of Gaza, weapons, and reconciliation with Fatah, in an attempt to clarify what awaits the movement under the new-old leadership.
Forty-five Palestinians, including children, were killed and 145 injured during the past week by Israeli army fire and bombardment on various areas across the Gaza Strip, according to data from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, while the occupation escalated its targeting of police personnel over the past two days by assassinating the police chief of North Gaza Governorate in an airstrike that targeted him in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood northwest of the city, and assassinating the head of the Internal Security Service in central Gaza by targeting a vehicle in Deir al-Balah.
In the West Bank, attacks by Israeli occupation forces and settlers against Palestinians have escalated since last Friday, after settlers and occupation forces killed four Palestinians from the same family in the town of Tall, southwest of Nablus, during their attack on the town, before a Palestinian managed to seize an Israeli weapon and open fire, resulting in the killing of an Israeli officer and soldier.
## What awaits Hamas after al-Hayya’s election as Sinwar’s successor?
At a time when humanitarian pressure on Gaza’s residents is increasing, the political map is witnessing notable new arrangements, most prominently last week’s decision by Hamas to entrust leader Khalil al-Hayya with the presidency of its Political Bureau, succeeding former head Yahya Sinwar, whom Israel assassinated about a year and a half ago, just a few months after the assassination of the former head, Ismail Haniyeh, according to a statement by the movement followed by several statements of support and congratulations, including some revealing phone calls from the deputy head of the Palestinian Authority, Hussein al-Sheikh, and the Egyptian intelligence minister, Hassan Rashad.
The selection of al-Hayya, who said after his election that Hamas would continue working with Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey to end the suffering of Gaza’s residents and achieve Israeli withdrawal and reconstruction, came after the movement concluded the election of the 18 members of the Political Bureau, including a representative of the Qassam Brigades, the movement’s military wing, in addition to electing members of the movement’s Shura Council in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and abroad, which is considered the highest consultative body within Hamas and includes representatives from the various regions, according to what Al Sharq channel reported.
Mada Masr spoke with Palestinian writers and political analysts to understand Hamas’s insistence on holding its internal elections about six years after the last elections the movement held, which according to its internal regulations are held every four years, as well as its ability, as a closed movement, to rearrange its leadership ranks after about two and a half years of Israel’s genocidal war, while the sources’ views differed regarding the movement’s ability, under al-Hayya’s leadership, to achieve progress on the most prominent issues in ceasefire negotiations, namely questions of governance, weapons, administration of the Strip, the day after the war, and reconciliation with Fatah.
Writer and political analyst Tayseer Mhaysen described al-Hayya’s election as “a kind of national and organizational reaffirmation of the position on resistance, and a consolidation of Hamas’s existence as a principal entity in the Palestinian political and organizational equation.” He also considered it “a negation of the alleged divergences within the movement’s leadership,” adding to Mada Masr that al-Hayya has the courage, wisdom, and flexibility that enable him to make balanced decisions, and that despite his military background, he can maintain an acceptable level of adherence to what he described as the “reference framework of resistance.”
However, the Palestinian people in general, and the people of Gaza in particular, find it strange that Palestinian organizations hold elections to choose their leadership, even if they are not even relatively democratic, while they themselves have been deprived of them for 20 years, according to writer and political analyst Omar Shaban, director of PalThink for Strategic Studies, who added to Mada Masr that the population and civil society in Gaza do not attach great importance to these elections, given their prior concern with the minimum necessities of life that are lacking.
“Fatah held elections in May, and Hamas held its own, while the people are deprived. The last general elections were in 2005, and now all legislative and parliamentary institutions have been suspended. We have had no parliament since 2019, no Legislative Council, no institutions at all. This is clear in the West Bank, and the situation in Gaza is no better,” according to Shaban, who stressed that al-Hayya’s election reflects the balance of power, indicating that Gaza still remains the principal decision-maker in contrast to the movement’s West Bank leader, Khaled Meshaal, who is viewed as “not truly part of the movement in Gaza,” in Shaban’s words.
Shaban added that al-Hayya’s selection came on the basis that some within Hamas believe that “Meshaal did not pay the price, was not arrested, did not lose any of his children, did not pay the price of suffering, which is an important standard within the movement. As for al-Hayya, he lost his four sons, the latest of whom was killed in an Israeli attack about two months ago.” Meanwhile, the names announced as winners of seats on Hamas’s Political Bureau, including its head in Gaza, Ali al-Amoudi, and its head in the West Bank, Zaher Jabarin, indicated that they represent the Iran-leaning current within the movement, and “this is what angered Qatar and Turkey, because they had been leaning more toward Meshaal.”
As for international and regional relations, Shaban explained that the Gulf states have differing positions toward Hamas’s leadership, noting that they cannot all be put in one basket. Qatar had preferred Meshaal more, but it has the capacity and flexibility to deal with al-Hayya, and in the end it wants to keep the line open with Hamas, whose leaders it hosts, according to the political analyst, who indicated that Turkey holds the same position as Qatar.
“Turkey hosts Hamas’s financial and organizational leadership and takes into account that it is a member of NATO, meaning it is on a fine line between hosting the movement and not angering NATO and the West, with whom it is keen to remain aligned and allied,” Shaban said, adding that Turkey in turn uses hosting movement leaders acceptable to the West as a bargaining chip to strengthen its position in its international relations.
As for Saudi Arabia, Shaban considered its position negative toward the selection of a new Hamas leadership. It does not care much about Meshaal or al-Hayya, but rather views the movement as a whole and not the individuals, stemming from its fundamental disagreement with it as a movement affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the same position held by the UAE, according to Shaban.
The most important state in this context, from Shaban’s point of view, is Egypt, which is geographically connected to the Gaza Strip, is in charge of the reconciliation file and the Palestinian file by decision of the League of Arab States, and is the state without whose essential role nothing can revolve or take place in the Strip. The political analyst also stressed that Egypt prefers the head of Hamas’s political bureau to be from Gaza, because he understands Egypt’s importance and the need for it, even though the relationship is not always cordial and is marked by constant ups and downs, as he said.
Amid this regional scene, the choice of al-Hayya would mean a better ability to make decisions within the movement, Shaban believes, explaining that since the assassination of al-Sinwar, Hamas has been run by a joint council made up of five people, which complicated or prevented the making of fateful decisions. Now, with this mandate granted to al-Hayya, he can, in partnership with the other members of the bureau, make decisions that could not previously be made, including, for example, a ceasefire, disarmament, or reconciliation with President Mahmoud Abbas, who called al-Hayya to offer condolences after the killing of his son about two months ago, in addition to the vice president congratulating him on his victory in the movement’s elections, paving the way for the possibility of opening a dialogue.
Contrary to Shaban’s view, political analyst and professor of political science Ayman al-Raqab believes that not much is expected from al-Hayya regarding the ceasefire, though he affirmed that Hamas holding democratic elections despite the killing of its leaders is a positive point in the movement’s favor, despite what it involved in terms of renewing confidence in part of the political bureau’s members and reassigning part of them by filling vacancies in Gaza’s share of the political bureau through appointment rather than elections.
After al-Hayya’s rise to the leadership of Hamas, al-Raqab linked any progress in the file of relations with the Palestinian factions, and reconciliation with the Fatah movement, to anticipated moves by the President of the Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, consisting of two things: first, the formation of a temporary framework for the Palestine Liberation Organization that includes all the factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which Abbas has not done for fear of being subjected to rupture and attack by the Americans and Israelis, as he said; and the other is the formation of a national unity government that includes all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
As for ceasefire negotiations, al-Raqab does not believe that al-Hayya has anything more in his bag than the proposals discussed over the past period, because he was effectively the head of all the committees that met with the mediators during the negotiations. Al-Raqab told Mada Masr that al-Hayya is highly experienced in negotiation work, especially after his meetings with regional and international leaders, in addition to the vision he now possesses, whose importance is growing in light of what he announced in his first speech after taking over Hamas’s leadership, regarding his keenness to preserve the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
The main crisis in the files before al-Hayya is concentrated, according to al-Raqab, on the future of Gaza’s weapons and the future of Hamas’s governmental apparatus in Gaza, especially after Israel rejected several proposals submitted by more than one mediator stipulating that the Palestinian factions’ weapons in Gaza be handed over to the police that would be reconstituted. He noted that despite the absence of weapons in Gaza, the occupation does not even want the presence of simple rifles, and is demanding that the Palestinian police be armed with electric weapons and batons, without firearms, and that neither Hamas police personnel nor its government have any role in the coming arrangements.
For her part, Palestinian political analyst Reham Odeh believed that the new Hamas leadership’s ability to bring about real movement in the negotiations file appears limited, because al-Hayya is considered one of the movement’s leaders most committed to the issue of “freezing the weapons,” not handing them over, based on his belief in the legitimacy of armed resistance not only in Gaza, but also in Jerusalem and the West Bank. She suggested that the negotiations are likely to see further extension and postponement, until international forces arrive in the Strip and the Peace Council attempts to impose a new political reality on the movement in Gaza, within the Yellow Zone.
That new reality may be expanded to include the rest of the Strip if Hamas shows flexibility in receiving the international forces without clashing with them. “It can be said that al-Hayya will try to avoid any direct clash with the Peace Council by showing flexibility on the issue of handing over governance to the Gaza Administration Committee, and by conditionally and neutrally accepting the role of the international forces, but at the same time he will most likely adopt a firm and hardline position on the issue of handing over weapons and will demand only that they be temporarily frozen,” Odeh told Mada Masr.
Odeh ruled out any imminent breakthrough on the humanitarian level in Gaza, and in the files of administering the Strip and the crossings, because the political situation in the besieged Strip is passing through an experimental stage and a testing of intentions, especially after Israel approved the entry of international forces into the Yellow Zone inside the Strip.
International and regional actors are watching with caution the extent to which the Peace Council’s mini-strategy succeeds in gradually stripping Hamas of its governmental and security powers, according to Odeh, in addition to the extent to which Gaza’s residents respond to cooperation with the international forces and the Gaza Administration Committee throughout the Strip, which could lead to the crossings being handed over to the administration of the international forces. At that point, “we may witness a major humanitarian breakthrough in freedom of travel and humanitarian aid.”
## Gaza journalists call for accelerating travel for patients and war-wounded
Palestinian journalists at the solidarity vigil in front of the Journalists’ Syndicate tent. Photograph: Omar al-Qattaa, Associated Press
Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip organized a solidarity vigil with their sick and wounded colleagues in front of the Journalists’ Syndicate tent in western Gaza City last Wednesday, calling for international community intervention to accelerate travel for treatment, amid the collapse of the health system in the Strip and the Israeli restrictions imposed on the travel of thousands seeking treatment outside the besieged Strip.
Hatem Omar, a Reuters cameraman and one of the war-wounded, who was targeted along with a number of journalists in August in a double Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in western Khan Younis, told Mada Masr that despite the deterioration of his health condition, he insisted on participating in the solidarity vigil to demand an opportunity to travel after completing the procedures for his medical referral in September for treatment of shrapnel injuries to various parts of his body from the bombardment, in addition to suffering from permanent disability in his right ear.
Omar has not been able to travel despite confirmation from the World Health Organization that it would coordinate his travel, the body overseeing the coordination of travel for patients, the wounded, and their companions. Hassan Jabr, one of the veteran Palestinian journalists, indicated that he had completed the procedures for two medical referrals, one from the Ministry of Health in Gaza and the other from its counterpart in Ramallah, to travel for treatment from the effects of a stroke that struck him years ago and whose effects worsened during recent years, causing general failure in the body’s systems, without any official or unofficial body responding to repeated appeals he launched on social media platforms to accelerate his travel to receive treatment, as he told Mada Masr.
During the war of extermination, about 450 journalists were wounded, including about 20 in urgent need of travel due to the seriousness of their health conditions, Ahed Farwana, secretary of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, told Mada Masr.
Deputy Head of the Syndicate, Tahseen al-Astal, confirmed during the protest that there is negligence and corruption in the file of patient referrals for treatment outside the Strip, as huge sums of money are imposed for a patient’s travel as a condition for inclusion on travel lists through the crossings, in addition to the forgery of medical reports and the issuance of medical referrals to those not entitled to them in order to grant them priority in travel, the exploitation of ties with what he described as the “responsible authorities,” and giving precedence to certain segments based on political or family influence rather than criteria of entitlement and actual need.
For his part, the Director General of Hospitals at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Mohammed Zaqout, held the Israeli authorities responsible for delays in the treatment of patients outside the Strip, stressing that patients’ travel “is subject to its whims,” as the occupation authorities allow only small numbers to leave, while around 17,000 people who have completed the procedures for their medical referrals are waiting, whereas only about 1,200 patients and wounded persons have managed to travel since the reopening of the Rafah Crossing at the beginning of last February.
Zaqout stressed the urgent need for the travel of about 2,300 patients and wounded persons to save their lives, after the deterioration of their condition, which he described as critical. In statements to Mada Masr, he pointed to the convening of a technical committee from his ministry to assess the health cases, while reiterating that their travel is subject to Israeli decisions, which delay the travel of those holding medical referrals and manipulate the issuance of the security approvals necessary for the travel of patients, the wounded, and their companions.
Last month, dozens of patients, wounded persons, and their relatives organized a protest in front of al-Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City, in the north of the Strip, coinciding with a similar protest in front of Nasser Hospital in the south, demanding the facilitation of travel for patients and the wounded to receive treatment outside the Strip, and rejecting the deprivation of thousands of the right to treatment, amid the continuation of Israeli restrictions imposed on the crossings.
About 1,500 patients and wounded persons have died while waiting to travel for treatment since the closure of the Rafah Crossing in May 2024, as Zaher al-Wahidi, Director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, previously told Mada Masr, explaining that the numbers Israel allows to travel range between 20 and 30 patients and wounded persons per day during the operating days of the Rafah Crossing, meaning that evacuating all the patients and wounded in the Strip would require about four years.
## The occupation kills 45 Palestinians in one week, and continues targeting the police and expanding the “yellow line”
The effects of the occupation’s shelling on Gaza. Qatar News Agency
Forty-five Palestinians, including children, were killed and 145 injured over the past week by Israeli army fire and shelling on various areas across the Gaza Strip, according to data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The occupation escalated its targeting of members of the Palestinian police in the north and center of the Strip over the past two days, with the assassination of the Director of Police of North Gaza Governorate, Colonel Abdel Nasser al-Maqadma, in an airstrike that targeted him in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood northwest of Gaza City last Saturday, which also saw the killing of Lieutenant Colonel Yamen Mohammed Obeid, who succumbed to wounds sustained in a strike that targeted a police gathering west of Jabalia Camp on July 14, killing seven police personnel at the time.
The following day, Sunday, occupation forces assassinated the Director of the Internal Security Service in the Central Governorate, Wael al-Ladawi, and Major Ramez Abu Zureiq, by targeting a vehicle they were riding in in Deir al-Balah in the central Strip, bringing the total number of police personnel killed since the announcement of the ceasefire in October to 53, according to data from the Ministry of Interior.
The ministry considered that the occupation is persisting in targeting the “pillars of police work in insistence on spreading chaos,” adding in a statement following the targeting of al-Maqadma that “this new crime requires urgent action from the international community and the mediating states in order to pressure the occupation to stop targeting the police force, which is carrying out its duty in preserving security and managing citizens’ affairs in the Gaza Strip, as a civilian body protected under international law.”
Apart from police personnel, last Wednesday saw the highest death toll of the week, as hospitals received the bodies of 12 people killed, one of them a Palestinian who had been killed before the ceasefire was announced and was retrieved afterward, according to the Ministry of Health. This came a day after the occupation killed nine Palestinians, including a mother and her three children, who were killed in the shelling of a house in the al-Sabra neighborhood south of Gaza City. Last Friday also saw the killing of three citizens, including a woman and a girl, in airstrikes and gunfire targeting areas in Khan Younis and Gaza City, according to the Palestinian press agency Safa.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced today the arrival of the bodies of three people killed and 12 injured persons at the Strip’s hospitals over the past twenty-four hours, bringing the total toll of victims since October 7, 2023, to 73,329 killed and 174,009 injured, including 1,203 killed and 3,900 injured since the ceasefire agreement came into effect last October.
At the same time, occupation forces continue expanding the “yellow line,” seizing more of the Strip’s land and forcibly displacing civilians, according to a statement by the Government Media Office, which explained that the occupation is carrying out a “silent and systematic crime through the continuous expansion and widening of the so-called yellow line,” which, the statement noted, has turned into a colonial tool to swallow up more of the Strip’s land, impose new geographic and demographic facts by force of arms, and impose a policy of forced displacement against the civilian population on a regular and continuous basis, in flagrant violation of all international laws and norms.
The statement also pointed to the monitoring of a “dangerous advance of military vehicles and yellow concrete blocks along several axes” during the past few days: “In the Central Governorate, the yellow line was moved a distance ranging from 300 to 350 meters westward, leading to the confiscation and bulldozing of agricultural lands and residential homes belonging to Palestinian families, and leaving other homes only a few meters from occupation barracks.”
As for Gaza Governorate, the occupation advanced deep into residential neighborhoods and “imposed a suffocating siege on the families and civilian residents, forcing dozens of families into repeated displacement under the threat of shelling, killing, and gunfire, in addition to the areas adjacent to the line in North Gaza Governo…
Text © Mada Masr — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source