Hamas’ vote to pick the head of its political bureau has reached a decisive stage, with two senior figures inside the movement saying the final vote will be held Sunday.
The vote is seen as a key test of the movement’s unity and its ability to overcome internal disputes at a sensitive moment for Palestinian politics, as US-Israeli pressure to disarm the resistance within a 60-day window.
One Hamas source said the Shura Council members eligible to vote are sharply split, with Gaza bureau chief Khalil Al-Hayya and external bureau chief Khaled Meshaal in close contention.
Only 45 Shura Council members are authorized to vote, not 83 as some media outlets have reported, the source told Al Manassa, speaking on condition of anonymity. The rest are observers with no voting rights under the movement’s internal bylaws.
Some consensus names have been floated to break the deadlock, the source said, noting the new bureau chief’s term will be interim, lasting only eight months.
Votes have begun shifting toward figures such as Mousa Abu Marzouk, head of external relations; Mohammed Darwish, head of the leadership council; and Nizar Awadallah, a council member, as an attempt to resolve the impasse if the Shura Council fails to settle the first round, the source said.
Hamas does not run a conventional election for the post. All 45 Shura Council members are considered both candidates and voters, and no one runs on their own initiative; a candidate must be nominated by a large number of council members.
A second Hamas source said the movement is split over how to conduct internal votes in its three councils: Gaza, the West Bank and abroad.
While Hamas has agreed to fill vacancies as they arise in the Gaza bureau because of security conditions, those overseeing the West Bank and external bureaus want full elections to bring in new faces, the second source said, also requesting anonymity.
The second source said there is an opportunity to hold full elections in the West Bank and external bureaus in tandem with the release of a number of prominent prisoners in two prisoner-swap deals carried out during the last war, including Abdel Nasser Issa, a prominent leader of Hamas’ armed wing in the West Bank.
Issa spent about 30 years in Israeli prisons before he was freed in the seventh batch of the swap deal on Feb. 27, 2025, the source said. He was deported to Egypt and then Turkey after his release.
Whoever Hamas’ Shura Council chooses will succeed Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas political bureau chief who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in October 2024. Sinwar had taken over the post after Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in an Israeli strike in Iran in July of that year.
