Khalil al-Hayya and the Hamas Movement's Recent Foreign Policy

Understanding al-Hayya Within the Genealogy of al-Zahar, al-Deif, al-Sinwar, and the "Muqawama" Faction of Hamas

Khalil al-Hayya, pictured on 6 September 2014; originally published by The Palestinian Information Center

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Introduction

This article provides a biographical and political profile of Khalil al-Hayya’s foreign policy position(s). Al-Hayya is currently one of the five acting deputy heads of the Hamas Executive Committee and the “chief negotiator” for the Hamas movement.[1] After the death of Yahya al-Sinwar on 16 October 2024, Hamas shifted to a temporary collective leadership structure rather than appointing a single successor. Beginning on 22 October 2024, the movement was administered by a five-member body that functioned as the acting Executive Committee (al-Lajna al-Tanfidhiyya) within the Political Bureau (al-Maktab al-Siyasi), pending internal elections. This acting Executive Committee consists of Mohammad Darwish, who serves as the head or coordinator of the body, together with al-Hayya, Khaled Meshal, Zaher Jabarin, and Nizar Awadallah. This five-person formation assumed executive responsibility for leading the movement following Sinwar’s death and operates as the acting leadership of Hamas within the framework of the Political Bureau. (One position within the Executive Committee was initially not publicly specified and was presented as a rotating or vacant role; it was later identified as being held by Awadallah.) Within this collective executive structure, al-Hayya often represents the movement in both indirect negotiations and diplomatic ventures while remaining one of the leading members.

This article demonstrates that al-Hayya’s views should be understood within the genealogy of the Hamas movement’s “Gaza faction,” which hews closer to the muqawama (viz., literally “resistance,” but denotating the so-called “Axis of Resistance”) ethos and has, over the last decade, increasingly been informed by the resistance’s purview. This is, indeed, evidenced by reports circulated in August 2024, which documented that al-Sinwar favored al-Hayya to lead the movement—demonstrating al-Sinwar’s succession leanings before his martyrdom on 16 October 2024.[2] After Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” (Tūfān al-Aqṣā), which was led by factions of the Palestinian resistance against the Gaza-envelope settlements on 7 October 2023, and the zionist entity’s genocidal aggression that followed, al-Hayya has, as of February 2024, spearheaded the Hamas delegation to resume talks seeking a ceasefire; he has remained at the head of the negotiating team in indirect talks with the zionist entity, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and, later, Turkey. Understanding al-Hayya’s biography and political worldview thus allows one to better understand the Hamas movement’s current stance.

Biography

Al-Hayya’s full name and kunya are: Khalīl Ismāʿīl Ibrāhīm al-Ḥayya (Abū Usāma). He was born on 5 November 1960 in Gaza City. According to his online biography entry, al-Hayya was reared in a “resistance family” and “tasted the pains of the 1967 Naksa”; memories of the occupation were “imprinted into his mind at a young age, when he witnessed the occupation army storm his family’s house and arrest members of it, including his uncle.”[3] Al-Hayya completed his elementary levels at the Hittin School in Gaza, his middle levels at the Hashim ibn Abd Manaf School, and received his general secondary certificate at Yafa School.

Al-Hayya displayed signs of religiosity at the age of 15. His encounter with Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March 1980 and extended discussions with the Hamas founder profoundly moved him, galvanizing him to move beyond mere individual religiosity and engage in organized, collective work. During his undergraduate studies, from 1978–1982, al-Hayya became an activist with the students of the Islamic Bloc. During this interval, he was arrested twice. The first time was in 1980, when he was held for a month and a half; the second was in 1982, where he was detained for a week, during which he was severely tortured and nearly died.[4]

In early 1983, he joined the Islamic Movement (affiliated with the Ikhwan of Palestine) as part of a youth group that included Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya al-Sinwar, among others. He obtained his Bachelor’s (BA) degree from the College of Origins of Religion (Usul al-Din) at the Islamic University in Gaza in 1983. After graduating from the Islamic University in Gaza, he returned to the university in 1984 to work as an instructor at the College of Usul al-Din. He subsequently engaged in popular, union, and preaching work; he also served as an imam in various mosques. He also began undertaking organizing work and contributed to the Gaza sector’s security organization, helping protect it from zionist infiltration in the period between 1984 and 1986. This allowed him to form a close relationship with figures like al-Sinwar, Rawhi Mushtaha, Tawfiq Abu Na’im, and Khalid al-Hindi, all of whom were associated with al-Majd—the pre-Hamas intelligence apparatus dedicated to identifying collaborators and insulating the movement from infiltration.[5]

Al-Hayya’s early activism and organizing roles included teaching as an assistant instructor/lecturer at the Islamic University of Gaza beginning in 1984. Shortly thereafter, al-Hayya was sent on scholarship to the University of Jordan to continue his studies, earning a Master’s degree (MA) in the Sunna and the Sciences of Hadith in 1986. Upon returning to Palestine, he participated in the First Intifada in 1987 and was part of the foundational youth group that helped found Hamas. As is well known, two years later, on 15 June 1989, Hamas’ leader and spiritual figurehead, Sheikh Yassin, was incarcerated alongside other prominent Hamas leaders. It is widely acknowledged that this arrest was a major blow that exposed Hamas’s security and military apparatuses. Subsequently, Musa Mohammed Abu Marzouk, “then residing in the USA, travelled to Gaza via Egypt and, under Sayyid Abu Samih, reconstituted a second and third tier administrative office with work that was centrally linked to the movement’s West Bank office, then handled by Hassan al-Qiq.”[6] Al-Hayya was one of those responsible for overseeing this reconstitution. In September 1989, after consulting with Hamas leaders in Jordan, the movement dispatched a delegation from the United States of America headed by Dr. Marzouk. They met in the house of Shaykh Sayyid Abū Masāmiḥ in Rafah, with the following in attendance: Dr. al-Hayya, ʿImād al-Falūjī, Sufyān Abū Samrah, Yūsuf al-Gharīz, Saʿīd Zaʿrab, and Yūsuf Rizqah. In the meeting, they rebuilt and restructured the movement anew, and they divided the Gaza Strip into five regions and the West Bank into seven regions, with a leader for the Gaza Strip to assume charge and another for the West Bank.[7] In 1991, in the midst of the first Intifada, al-Hayya was arrested for the third time. He had been targeted for his role as organizer and as a politically astute member of Hamas.

More than a decade after obtaining his MA, he obtained a PhD in the same field (Sunna and Sciences of Hadith) from the University of the Holy Qur’an and Islamic Sciences in Sudan in 1997.[8] When he returned, he became active in union work after joining the faculty of the Islamic University of Gaza; he took up the responsibility of Vice-President of the employees’ union of the university in 1998 and then was elected President of the same union in 2001. After completing his postgraduate studies, he served as a student-union leader and, after 2001, as the Dean of Student Affairs. He was soon thereafter elected to the Association of Palestinian Scholars.[9]

Al-Hayya was also actively involved as a leader in other social welfare institutions, such as the Daʿwah Educational Institute. The leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, through the initiative and consultation of the leader Fathi Ḥamād and with the blessing of Shaykh Ahmad Yassin, approved the establishment of the Daʿwah Educational Institute, with its first branch in the northern Gaza Strip in 2002. Among the merits of this newly founded institute was that it provided the rising generations with the opportunity to study the sciences of da‘wah and the movement. It preserved knowledge directly in the hands of the movement’s founding leaders from the first and second ranks. Those who lectured at this institute since its inception included: Shaykh Yassin, Dr. al-Hayya, Dr. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Rantīsī, Dr. Ibrāhīm al-Muqaddamah, Ustadh Muḥammad Sham‘ah, Ustadh ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Dukhān, Ustadh Fatḥī Ḥamād, and others.[10]

These academic and organizing credentials qualified him for membership in the Association of Palestinian Scholars and, in 2006, he was elected as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for Gaza on Hamas’ “Change and Reform” list. He assumed responsibility for chairing its bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council. He held multiple responsibilities within the movement, including membership in its Political Bureau, Deputy Leader of the movement in Gaza, and Chairman of the movement’s Office for Arab and Islamic Relations.

Al-Hayya survived an assassination attempt in 2007 after an airstrike by the zionist occupation that targeted his family home in Gaza. Seven family members were killed, including two of his brothers, four of his nephews, and one cousin. The incident occurred on 20 May 2007, in Gaza’s Shujaiya neighborhood, when an airstrike conducted by the zionist occupation killed eight people in total. Seven of the dead belonged to the al-Hayya family. Among those killed were three minors aged sixteen and seventeen, along with two men aged fifty-six and sixty-four. Four additional individuals were wounded in the strike, two of them seriously, while the other two sustained minor injuries and were later released from the hospital. Following the incident, the zionist occupation’s military stated that the operation had targeted members of Hamas’s military wing who were present in the house’s courtyard; it was later revealed that Khalil al-Hayya had been a primary target. According to the military’s account, five of those killed were armed Hamas operatives, while three were civilians. A subsequent announcement identified another primary target as Samah Farwaneh, described as a senior Hamas figure allegedly responsible for launching Qassam rockets and for a shooting attack on an Electric Company employee on 19 March 2007. Farwaneh was among those martyred. No further information was released concerning the involvement of the other victims in hostilities. Testimonies subsequently gathered by B’Tselem contradicted the claim by the zionist entity that most of the deceased were armed Hamas members.[11] Two of the wounded survivors asserted that none of the dead carried weapons and that only two individuals—Farwaneh and 21-year-old ‘Ala al-Hayya—were affiliated with Hamas. The victims had been sitting in the tin-roofed divan, a guest reception structure, belonging to the al-Hayya family. Farwaneh, who was active in Hamas’s military wing, had happened to pass by and was invited by the family to join them for coffee. Shortly afterward, upon hearing the sound of an Israeli drone, the family decided to leave the structure, at which point missiles struck and killed them.

His son, Hamza, a member of Al-Qassam Brigades, was martyred on 28 February 2008 by a missile fired from a reconnaissance aircraft manned by the zionist occupation. Al-Hayya’s family was again targeted during the summer of 2008. Both local media and the Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida reported that on the evening of 25 July 2008, a bomb exploded beneath a parked car in Gaza City, killing five members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Among the dead were senior al-Qassam commander Nidal Hussayn Masabih and Iyad al-Hayya, who was Khalil al-Hayya’s nephew; a four-year-old girl named Sirin al-Safadi was also martyred and twenty-one others sustained injuries in the explosion. The incident occurred after two earlier blasts in Gaza City the same day—one near the residence of Hamas PLC member Marwan Abu Ras, which caused no injuries, and another at al-Jazira Café, where a would-be attacker linked to the Dughmush clan and the Jaysh al-Islam was killed when his explosives detonated prematurely.[12] Khalil al-Hayya informed al-Aqsa TV on 26 July 2008 that those responsible for the blasts “claim affiliation with Fatah and the black Muqata’a [President Abbas’ government headquarters in Ramallah], who say that the explosions resulted from internal Hamas disputes, clearly and without mistake proving that Fatah is behind the attacks. Or people affiliated with Fatah.”[13]

Al-Hayya was an active member of reconciliatory dialogue sessions held between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in 2008 that followed the Battle of Gaza—a period characterized by acrimony. However, al-Hayya also remained principled on a number of the terms and, thus, stalled the dialogue when Hamas, along with three other Palestinian resistance factions, refused to attend a reconciliation conference, which was scheduled on 10 November 2008, until Hamas members detained in the West Bank by the PA were freed (such that they could attend the conference). Al-Hayya authored an article where he clarified this position and also asked that “[Mahmoud] Abbas participate in all the dialogue sessions, and not just be present at the opening ceremony.”[14] Al-Hayya participated as part of the Hamas delegation in negotiations in Cairo after the Gaza wars of 2012 and 2014. During the latter war—which lasted from 8 July until 26 August 2014 and was, per Hamas, given the appellation “Dry Stubble” (and “Operation Protective Edge,” per the zionist occupation’s military) —al-Hayya played a leading part in the ceasefire negotiating team, auguring the role he would again assume after Tufan al-Aqsa.[15]

During this period, he was the Head of the movement’s Media Office and his status inside the movement rose as he became head of its Office for Arab and Islamic Relations. The zionist occupation continued its pursuit of al-Hayya and attempted to assassinate him again on 20 July 2014, but he survived again when his eldest son Osama’s home was hit in the Shujaiya area east of Gaza; the attack resulted in the death of Osama, Osama’s wife, and three of their children. Al-Hayya’s wife and two of Osama’s children survived because they were outside the house. As the zionist newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth documented, the zionist occupation’s air force launched another strike on al-Hayya’s house—this time in the Al-Tuffah district, on 9 October 2023.[16]

On 22 November 2023, al-Hayya headed the Hamas delegation to Lebanon for a meeting with the Secretary-General of Hizbu’llah, Hassan Nasru’llah, after the announcement of a prisoners’ exchange agreement between the movement and the zionist occupation; it was reported that Hizbu’llah and Hamas “reviewed the latest developments in ceasefire talks on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the most recent proposal put forward to bring that conflict to an end” and “affirmed their ongoing field and political cooperation to achieve their goals.”[17] On 2 January 2024, the zionist entity’s Channel 12 announced al-Hayya’s assassination in a drone strike targeting a building housing a Hamas office in a suburb of Beirut in which Saleh al-Ārūrī, Deputy-Chair of Hamas’s Political Bureau, and two Al-Qassam commanders were martyred. However, the Hamas movement confirmed that Khalil al-Hayya was outside Lebanon and thus alive. On 8 February 2024, al-Hayya led the movement’s delegation to Cairo to resume talks related to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

On 6 August 2024, Hamas announced that its Shura-Council unanimously selected al-Sinwar as the new leader of the movement and Khalil al-Hayya as his deputy, following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on 31 July in Tehran, Iran.[18] Al-Hayya has played a major role in the political and media affairs surrounding “Al-Aqsa Flood” and has managed negotiations regarding the prisoners’ file.

Political Leadership and Ideology

As aforementioned, Al-Hayya began his Islamic activism at the Islamic University of Gaza in the early 1980s and joined the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and then became part of Hamas from its founding in 1987. According to his biography, al-Hayya began his Islamic activism under the “founding of the Sheikh of the Hamas movement, martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and plunged into popular work, resistance, and political activity.”[19] Al-Hayya’s work with trade-union and university leadership is also incredibly significant. He was the Vice-President and then Head of the Islamic University of Gaza’s Employees’ Union, in 1998 and 2001, respectively. These administrative posts allowed him to serve as a bridge between religious scholarship, campus mobilization, and the Hamas movement’s cadre formation.

Al-Hayya’s parliamentary role is also of great importance. He was elected as a Palestinian Legislative Council member for Gaza City in 2006, as part of Hamas’s “Change and Reform” (al-Taghyīr wa-l-Iṣlāḥ) list; he also chaired the Hamas bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council. He later ascended to the Gaza leadership as well as the political Bureau. Beginning in 2017, he was appointed the deputy head of Ḥamas’s Gaza regional Political Bureau. In 2021, he headed the movement’s “Jerusalem Is Our Promise” election list (for elections that the PA eventually cancelled) and later became one of the top-tier Hamas Political Bureau leaders and a principal negotiator abroad. One of his best-known achievements, prior to leading the Tufan al-Aqsa negotiations, was his spearheading the 2022 rapprochement with Syria.[20]

Al-Hayya served as director of Hamas’s “Office of Arab and Islamic Relations,” fronting regional outreach and reconciliation files, including but not limited to the Syria file of 2022. His notable stances include his emphasizing “national unity” and endurance during the zionist entity’s siege. On 9 September 2025, the zionist entity launched an airstrike on the Hamas delegation in Doha while they were discussing a proposal from the United States; al-Hayya’s son, Hamam, and his office director, Jihad Labad, were martyred alongside three companions.[21]

Even prior to the zionist entity’s September 2025 Doha strikes, which had intended to target al-Hayya and the other members of the negotiating team, he had been a repeated target of the occupation. Indeed, al-Hayya has survived numerous similar attempts by the zionist entity, including in 2007 and 2014; he has, during these strikes, lost close family members—including his eldest son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren during the zionist entity’s 2014 strikes on Gaza.

As Paola Caridi recounts, on 20 May 2007, prefiguring the “Battle of Gaza”:

[…] the Israeli Air Force attacked the home of Khalil al-Hayya. Al-Hayya, the Hamas deputy who headed the parliamentary wing, had been one of the most influential figures who secured truces between Hamas’s and Fatah’s armed militants over the previous few months, and had also been one of the most influential figures in the attempt to form a national unity government both before and after the Mecca Agreement. Moreover, he had been charged with the most delicate of assignments: the negotiations over the Islamist movement’s entry into the PLO. The Israeli Air Force raid killed seven of al-Hayya’s family members, while he himself was at the Egyptian embassy putting the finishing touches on the agreement for the sixth truce with Fatah.[22]

Al-Hayya is broadly considered to be representative of an ideological faction within Hamas that hews closer to the ideologically principled camp—one closer to the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and also punctuated by figures, both political and military, such as Mahmoud al-Zahar, Yahya al-Sinwar, Salah al-Ārūrī, Mohammed al-Deif, amongst others. Properly appreciating al-Hayya’s ideology requires an understanding of how Hamas’ Political Bureau has, over the last decade, shifted to countenance the Qassam leadership. Hamas’ Political Bureau, called the maktab al-siyāsī, is comprised of internal groups that spread out in four locations: 1) the Gaza Strip, 2) the West Bank, 3) the zionist entity’s prisons, where some of its members are jailed and, lastly, 4) the outside. Notably, the al-Qassam Brigades did not hold an official position within this framework—one which was initially based on the Muslim Brotherhood of the Levant’s.[23]

Two components of the Hamas leadership share responsibility for decision-making: 1) the top level of the Unified Consultative Council (majlis al-shura al-muwah-had) and the Political Bureau (maktab al-siyāsī); 2) the planning and information agencies. Decision-making has traditionally been undertaken through a complicated mechanism, due to the vulnerability of Hamas leaders to arrest and assassination.[24] However, Hamas’ military wing began to enjoy a political presence within the political structure after the movement’s internal elections for the renewal of the Gaza Political Bureau in April 2012. As Caridi adumbrates, “[t]o the detriment of the defeated pragmatists,” epitomized by Khaled Meshal, the newly elected list of Political Bureau members included “Ahmed al-Ja’bari and Marwan Issa, first of all, and then Khalil al-Hayya and Nizar Awadallah, whose election is said to have taken place with the votes controlled by the al-Qassam Brigades.”[25]

In turn, the Qassam Brigades began to enjoy more of a political presence within the Hamas framework beginning in 2012. Notably, this was precipitated by the release of figureheads who had been part of Munazzamat al-Jihād wa al-Daʿwah (al-Majd) [26] such as Yahya al-Sinwar, Rawhi Mushtaha, and Tawfiq Abu Naim—i.e., figures released as part of the “Gilad Shalit exchange” (Wafa al-Ahrar) negotiations and the consequent “Loyalty of the Free” agreement.[27] As political scientist Leila Seurat confirms, “these returns were factors that decreased the external leadership’s influence over the al-Qassam Brigades.”[28] Mouchir al-Masri, a Hamas Political Bureau and Palestinian Legislative Council member, conveyed that this amounted to a kind of “rebirth of the Gaza leadership,” remarking to Seurat that this resulted in “a form of novelty in Gaza’s importance” within the Hamas political Bureau.[29]

This also dovetailed with Khaled Meshal’s fourth term as head of the Political Bureau coming to an end in December 2012 and Hamas celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. Earlier in the year, Meshal announced that he would step down and not run for office again. In November 2012, the zionist entity carried out another assassination of a Hamas leader in Gaza. This time it was the head of the Qassam Brigades’ Ahmed Jaabari. In turn, Meshal consolidated his power for a fifth term despite the rules of Hamas’ Political Bureau stipulated a leader must step down after four consecutive terms. In December 2012, after the zionist entity’s “Pillar of Defense” operation had ended (which lasted from 14 November–21 November 2012), Meshal travelled to Gaza for the first time in decades. In doing so, he managed to re-establish contact and renew his support among the movement’s grassroots in the strip. In a widely attended address to tens of thousands of supporters in Gaza City’s central square, Meshal congratulated them on their most recent victory over the zionist entity and declared that he would “follow their will” by remaining leader for a fifth consecutive term.

Yet beneath the surface, the shifting center of gravity within the movement was becoming increasingly evident. Although the 2012 internal elections re-elected Meshal through an extra-procedural extension of his mandate, they introduced a crucial change: the electorate—numbering in the hundreds of thousands—chose Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, as the movement’s deputy head. This result both affirmed Gaza’s growing influence within Hamas and marked another stage in Haniyeh’s steady rise to leadership, setting him up to succeed Meshal in the following election four years later. The 2012 elections also reflected another transformation—this time from the political to the military wing of the organization. Mounting dissatisfaction with Meshal’s faction and its political-participation strategy manifested in a 30-percent turnover of representatives in the Shura councils at both local and general levels. One out of every three representatives was voted out and replaced by figures affiliated with the military wing. Of Gaza’s 77 local Shura council seats, 23 were filled by members of the Qassam Brigades.

The internal realignment reached fruition in the 2016 movement-wide elections. This was the same year that al-Sinwar was chosen to take over the same leading position in Gaza that he had previously held in the prisons.[30] In accordance with Hamas’s procedural statutes, a “General Congress” composed of roughly 50,000 eligible voters was convened. This body was responsible for electing the movement’s leadership for a four-year term—specifically determining who would occupy the posts of head and deputy head of the executive committees, as well as the members and heads of Hamas’s local divisions. Those chosen to serve in the local leadership bodies subsequently voted to determine the composition of the overarching, movement-wide institutions. Each of Hamas’s four regional divisions enjoyed equal representation within these central institutions. The divisions comprised: members incarcerated in the zionist entity’s prisons; residents of the Gaza Strip; residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem; and members of the diaspora in exile. Individuals were granted membership in the General Congress by virtue of their elevated status within the organization.

In Gaza alone, 12,000 individuals held such membership, thereby possessing the right to participate in the selection of Hamas’s various governing organs. Each of the four divisions maintained its own local Shura council and executive committee, all of which were overseen by the General Shura Council and the General Executive Committee. The elected heads of the local executive committees automatically became members of the General Executive Committee as well. The top General Executive Committee was composed of 19 members—six representing Gaza, six representing the West Bank, six representing the diaspora, and one elected leader who could hail from any of the three regions. Due to communication restrictions and limited access, the prisoners were not represented in this highest body.

In the 2016 elections, three figures competed for the position of head of the General Executive Committee: former leader Mousa Abu Marzouk, former head of operations Mohammed Nazzal, and Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Gaza division. By early 2017, the results from all divisions were announced via a video conference involving the executive committee members, and once the votes were tallied, Haniyeh emerged victorious. His popularity within Hamas had surged over the preceding decade, shaped by the movement’s emphasis on Gaza and governance, and he also commanded wide support among Palestinians more broadly. Many viewed Haniyeh as having stood resolute against the zionist occupation, preserving Hamas’s control over Gaza without concession. At the time of the election, opinion polls indicated that Haniyeh would secure approximately 50 percent of the vote were a Palestinian presidential election to be held. Saleh al-Ārūrī was elected to be Haniyeh’s deputy. Al-Ārūrī belonged to the military wing and his election was further proof that Hamas was now moving away from Meshal’s so-called “pragmatist” camp.

Factionalization and Reconsolidation

Notably, although the signs of this ideological bifurcation can be traced back to late 1995,[31] they came to a head first in 2011-2012, during the beginning of the Syrian civil war—during which al-Zahar and Marzouk opposed Meshal’s stance to distance itself from the Syrian state—and then with Khaled Meshal’s 2015 stance that aligned Hamas with “political legitimacy” in Yemen (widely read at the time as tacit support for the Saudi-led war against Ansar Allah). Meshal increasingly began to pursue alliances with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and to isolate Hamas from the muqawama/“Axis of Resistance.” Insofar as the Syrian issue is concerned, there is evidence indicating two divergent positions developed within the movement. Initially, Ismail Haniyeh, reflecting Meshal’s view, declared full solidarity with the Syrian people. However, Musa Abu Marzouk and Mahmoud al-Zahar advocated for political reform as a means to resolve the Syrian crisis in a way that would alleviate the suffering of both the Syrian people and the Syrian government. This tension was particularly pronounced between the Gaza leadership versus Meshal. As Seurat describes:

Part of the Gaza leadership (the al-Qassam Brigades in particular) asserts, moreover, that it was Iran that helped them to resist Israel during the November 2012 aggression. A camp was formed in Gaza around Ahmed al-Jaabari: it considered that the path to free Palestine went through Iran and not Qatar. Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that the chiefs of Hamas’ armed branch had written to Mesh’al to warn him against an alignment with Qatar at Iran’s expense, stating that it was Tehran’s military support (and not the Gulf states’ subsidies) that had permitted resisting Israeli military occupation.[32]

In September 2013, Abu Marzouk authored an article in the London-based AI-Hayat newspaper where he stated that:

The movement left Syria to preserve our non-intervention policy; we left because we refused to take one side at the expense of the other. Hamas’s relationship with the Syrian government was never better and our relations with the different Syrian groups were the same. We saved ourselves, our members and our people from the consequences of intervening and taking sides, and advised all the parties involved to work towards a political solution to act as a foundation for dealing with one another, instead of a security and military solution.[33]

Marzouk elsewhere remarked that “[t]he worst thing that hurt Meshal when he left Syria was the close relationship with Assad,” adding that Hamas had been the “biggest loser” for Meshal’s decision.[34]

Some leaders in Gaza also expressed their dissatisfaction with Khaled Meshal’s new place of residence, namely Doha. The presence of Meshal beside Yusuf al-Qaradawi during his sermon on 3 May 2013 was likewise controversial: the insults directed at Iran and Hizbu’llah by the Egyptian sheikh prompted Mahmoud al-Zahar to send a letter to Meshal, urgently asking him to clarify his position and to denounce al-Qaradawi’s statements.[35] Other leaders in Gaza also declared their opposition to the visit to Gaza by the president of the World Union of Ulemas: Imad al-Alami, upon his return to the Strip after leaving Damascus, had attempted to persuade Haniyeh to cancel this visit as an emergency response to the declarations made a few days earlier in Doha.[36] These efforts were in vain: shortly after his fierce speech against Hizbu’llah, the Egyptian sheikh went to Gaza nonetheless, provoking the displeasure of the Strip’s leadership.

Reasserting the alliance with Iran also entailed providing assurances to Lebanon’s Hizbu’llah. Faced with Sheikh al-Qaradawi’s insulting remarks made in Khaled Meshal’s presence, members of the Gaza leadership took several steps to ease tensions with Hizbu’llah: two days prior to the Egyptian sheikh’s visit, a delegation from the al-Qassam Brigades, led by Marwan Issa, traveled to Tehran. Mahmoud al-Zahar sent a letter to Hizbu’llah’s secretary general containing the following words: “You are a Sheikh of Islam, and Qaradawi does not represent Islam.”[37] These disagreements concerning the alliance with Hizbu’llah would later be acknowledged by Hassan Nasru’llah himself; in his speech on January 15, 2015, preceding the renewal of relations with Hamas, he referred to earlier divisions not only within Hamas’s political leadership but also within the al-Qassam Brigades.

On 17 June 2013, another incident had provoked discontent: in an official communiqué, Khaled Meshal called on Hizbu’llah to withdraw from Syria and to end its participation alongside Bashar al-Assad’s forces. This statement was sharply criticized by the Gaza leadership—particularly by Mahmoud al-Zahar, who had not been consulted in advance. In response, Wafiq Safa, Hizbu’llah Lebanese head of security, instructed Ali Barakat, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, to close his seven offices located in Beirut’s southern suburbs and to leave the country immediately. Safa reportedly told the Hamas envoy that the movement had chosen to side with Qatar and, by extension, with “Israel’s side.”[38] In the summer of 2013, Hamas, with al-Zahar leading the charge, began to rebuild its positive relations with Iran. In June 2013, the movement’s leadership dispatched two delegations—one to Beirut and another to Tehran. On 9 December 2013, Mahmoud al-Zahar congratulated Iran on the progress of its nuclear negotiations and declared that relations between Hamas and the Islamic Republic had been restored. Subsequently, on 10 March 2014, the renewal of relations was formally confirmed by the Iranian parliament’s president, Ali Larijani, who stated, “Our relationship with Hamas is good and has returned to what it was.”[39]

Yet a split had clearly riven the movement, which made itself apparent soon thereafter. In the Spring of 2015, contemporaneous reports showed a Hamas split over Yemen—especially between Meshal’s external leadership and figures in Gaza tied to the military wing—underscored by Meshal’s pivot toward Saudi, risked sidelining the Qassam current. Meshal articulated what was widely received as Hamas’ official line, publishing a statement in March 2015 that “Hamas stands with legitimacy in Yemen,” and “[w]e underline the importance of Yemen’s unity, security and stability.”[40] The antecedent rapprochement with Iran was further disrupted by Meshal’s July 2015 visit to Saudi Arabia, which was widely viewed as evidence of an emerging rift with Tehran.[41] As Seurat writes, “[w]hile [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad and the PFLP [viz., Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] had clearly condemned Saudi aggression, the neutrality of Hamas, which emphasized ‘the right of Arab states to make their own countries secure’, was tantamount to the Iranians’ opinion to tacit approval of the military coalition headed by the Saudis.”[42] On 15 March 2016, Khaled Meshal announced that Iran had halted its support for the Islamic Resistance Movement due to Hamas’s position on the Syrian revolution.[43] However, his remarks were contradicted by a different group of Hamas leaders from travelling to Tehran in February and March 2016 to attend the celebrations marking the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Signs of further disagreement soon transpired. One notable instance was a 22 January 2015 condolence letter from al-Deif, the commander-in-chief of al-Qassam Brigades. Al-Deif sent a message expressing his condolences to Hizbu’llah’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasru’llah, for the martyrs of Quneitra, calling for the unification of resistance forces against the zionist entity. Al-Deif sent his letter after the Quneitra strike that martyred Jihad Mughniyeh (Imad’s son) and other Hizbu’llah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members. Multiple outlets carried the text and a photo of the letter. One of the key lines attributed to al-Deif was that “[t]he true enemy of the nation is the Zionist enemy and all rifles must be directed against it [...] All forces of resistance must direct their coming battle as one.”[44] Al-Manar also reported that Hamas’s deputy Political Bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh, sent a second message to Nasru’llah, offering his “deepest condolences” to the party’s leadership and the families of the martyrs. In his message, Haniyeh stated, “[t]he enemy thought that by assassinating leaders it could break the will of the nation and its growing resistance. This is a failed policy,” emphasizing the commitment to the nation’s rights and principles.[45]

Reports were also published reflecting a division inside Hamas over the stance that Meshal had articulated regarding the Yemen war, with members of the Gaza faction and within Qassam in support of Ansar Allah.[46] According to some publications, Gaza leaders—including Mahmoud al-Zahar, Fathi Hammad, and Qassam deputy Marwan ‘Issa—rejected Meshal’s line and affirmed to Iran and other allies that Meshal did not speak for the movement.[47] Hamas itself denied any split, underscoring how sensitive the issue was.[48]

The apparent victory of the Gaza division over the Meshal faction was soon evident. A renewed rapprochement between Iran and Hamas was facilitated by the restoration of friendly ties between Hamas and Hizbu’llah. Between January and June 2017, Moussa Abu Marzouk held multiple discussions with Hassan Nasrallah.[49] When the Gulf Cooperation Council publicly listed Hizbu’llah as a terrorist organization, Hamas publicly voiced its support for the Lebanese Shia party when, on 20 November 2017, the Arab League once again labelled Hizbu’llah a “terrorist” group.[50] The renewed connection with Hizbu’llah enabled Hamas to strengthen its relations with Tehran, as Iran served as an indispensable gateway for re-establishing contact with Syria. In February 2018, when the Syrian army downed an Israeli F-16 fighter jet over Syrian territory, the al-Qassam Brigades formally declared their solidarity with Damascus. During Salah al-Ārūrī’s visit to Tehran in July 2019, Ismail Haniyeh referred to the “lesson” learned from Hamas’s departure from Damascus and expressed hope for a return to a strong Syria. Meanwhile, speaking from Moscow, Moussa Abu Marzouk stressed that Hamas’s ties with Iran had never been severed.[51]

The Gaza faction’s political shrewdness also was evinced. Indeed, Meshal’s putative pragmatism evinced shortsightedness when, in between February and September 2019, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia arrested over 60 Hamas members in Saudi Arabia, including the most prominent member, Mohammed al-Khudari, who had held the post of Hamas’s representative to Saudi Arabia who for 20 years. In July 2020, Hamas banned “Saudi-owned media outlets like Al-Arabiya and Al-Hadath due to their role in spreading lies and anti-Hamas incitement.”[52]

Following Khaled Meshal’s withdrawal from Hamas’s political leadership, internal elections were held in February 2017, inaugurating significant changes in the distribution of tasks between the internal and external leadership. In early 2017, the results from each division of the Hamas Political Bureau/General Executive Committee were presented in a video conference call with all executive committee members. Adding the respective local results, Haniyeh, who had started as Yassin’s personal assistant and later served as head of his inner cabinet, emerged as the winner. Locally in Gaza, al-Sinwar was elected to follow Haniyeh’s post as Hamas leader in Gaza. For the first time in Hamas’s history, a member of the Gaza leadership, Haniyeh, was nominated as the head of Hamas’s Political Bureau. It was equally significant that in the same elections, al-Sinwar was elected as the head of the Political Bureau of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Over the subsequent years, the political leadership of Hamas began to reflect a foreign policy purview in line with the muqawama ethos indexed by al-Sinwar.

Hamas leader al-Hayya was, as Paola Caridi herself appreciated, part of this faction. He made his approach pellucid when he stated, in a 2018 interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher that the movement’s “relationship with Iran is not a secret, and we strive for good relations with everyone, especially the ‘axis of resistance [viz., muqawama].’”[53] Al-Hayya made a number of further important clarifying remarks, including that “[t]here is a new alliance being formed in the region by the US against Iran, and we oppose this alliance,” “[w]e oppose any formation in the region aimed at waging a new war against Iran,” “[t]he relationship with Iran is developing and has returned to its best state before the stagnation,” and that “[w]e do not accept Israel being part of an Arab alliance that includes Sunni states to confront Iran.”[54] In an interview on Tuesday, 20 March 2018 with Anadolu Agency, al-Hayya, after fielding questions about the so-called “Deal of the Century,” added that “[o]ur relations with Tehran are based on the principle of protecting the Palestinian cause, supporting the resistance project, and strengthening the Palestinian people in the face of the zionist entity’s plans.”[55] After Qassem Soleimani’s killing, Al-Hayya defended Ismail Haniyeh’s attendance at the Tehran funeral—an explicit public defense of closeness to Iran; Hayya stated that Soleimani “extended support to us, he was a man who loved Palestine, he believed in the necessity of liberating it from the occupation and he was a supporter of the Palestinian resistance and people.”[56]

Al-Hayya accompanied Haniyeh to Tehran in July 2024 to honor the election of Iran’s new President, Masoud Pezeshkian.[57] On 8 February 2025, Iran’s Supreme Leader met a Hamas delegation that included Khalil al-Hayya in Tehran.[58] Al-Hayya, acting as the deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, congratulated Imam Khamenei on the Gaza Resistance’s victory, saying, “Today, we have come to meet you while all of us stand with our heads held high, and this great victory is our shared victory with the Islamic Republic.”[59] Mohammad Ismail Darwish, then chairman of the Hamas Shura Council and currently a member of the five-person maktab al-siyāsī, echoed similar sentiments, noting that “[w]e take the coincidence of the days of the Gaza Resistance’s victory with the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution as a good sign, and we hope that this concurrence will pave the way for the liberation of al-Quds and al-Aqsa Mosque.”[60] Soon thereafter, on 4 September 2025, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs printed a readout with notes from al-Hayya’s meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, who was visiting Doha; the minutes read that “Al-Hayya expressed gratitude for the support of Iran’s leadership, government, and people for the Palestinian cause, and praised the solidarity shown by freedom-seeking people across the region and the world, especially the heroic people of Yemen.”[61] On 10 October 2025, another report was published in which al-Hayya thanked Iran alongside the ceasefire mediators (Qatar, Egypt, Turkey), for their efforts, illustrating continued appreciation.[62]

The aforementioned shift was reaffirmed in 2021, when al-Sinwar was re-elected as head of Gaza leadership. After the 2021 election, names of the respective heads of the Hamas movement’s Shura Council in general (e.g., Ahmed Bahr) and in the Gaza Strip (e.g., Osama al-Muzaini) were also disclosed, a matter that had previously been kept secret.[63] Most critically, the re-orientation towards the Gaza pole, punctuated by Sinwar, who himself reflected the views of al-Qassam leadership, began to articulate itself in political figureheads outside of Gaza—such as al-Hayya. Despite the martyrdom of many important leaders from Gaza, including, recently, al-Deif and al-Sinwar, al-Hayya’s principled leadership stands in marked continuity with their trajectory.

Conclusion

The findings of this paper should not necessarily be taken to indicate that factionalization continues to exist within Hamas’ political leadership (maktab al-siyāsī), as some recent speculations have suggested. This might be an overly hasty conclusion. What the paper does demonstrate, however, is that al-Hayya represents an ideological-political position, particularly in terms of foreign policy, that was precipitated by figures such as al-Zahar, al-Deif, and al-Sinwar.

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[1] “A Hamas delegation, headed by Khalil al-Hayya, arrives in Cairo to follow up on the implementation of the ceasefire,” Palestine Information Center, 19 October 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://palinfo.com/news/2025/10/19/978847/ .

[2] “Hamas is consulting to choose Haniyeh’s successor... and Sinwar rejects Khaled Meshaal,” al-Arabiya, 3 August 2024; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/t5jj53d8 . According to a source, al-Sinwar preferred al-Hayya as he wanted the movement to be led by someone “who has good relations with Iran and Syria”; also see the video broadcast, “Informed sources told Al-Arabiya that Sinwar rejects Khaled Meshaal assuming leadership of Hamas at present and prefers Khalil al-Hayya,” Youtube, 4 August 2024; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025):

.

[3] “Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas’ negotiating delegation after the Al-Aqsa floods”, Al-Jazeera, 9 September 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/mr3v7ppu

[4] Ibid.

[5] See: Khalid al-Hindi, ‘Amaliyyat al-Bina’ al-Watani al-Filastini Wijhat Nazar Islamiyyah (The National Palestinian Building Process From an Islamic Perspective) (Nablus: Palestinian Research and Studies Center, 1999), pp. 70-75.

[6] Ahmed Qasem Hussein, “The Evolution of the Military Action of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades: How Hamas Established its Army in Gaza,” Al-Muntaqa, Vol.1, No.2, September/October 2021, p. 86. Within the reconstruction and restructuring process, military operations were divorced from other inner workings of the group. This is when the “Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades” first formed, although Abu Marzouk reported that “none of us apart from Dr. Khairi al-Agha was aware—until later—of the movement leadership’s having formed a military unit that was called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, apparently to distinguish it from the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a known entity at the time” (quoted in ibid.).

[7] ʿAbd Allāh Yūsuf al-Laddāwī, The Seeds of Hamas: A Report on Promoting the Values and Morals of Islam in Palestinian Society (The Al-Aqsa Flood as a Case Study), 2025, p. 465, reads:

September 1989: After consulting with Hamas leaders in Jordan, the movement dispatched a delegation from the United States headed by Dr. Musa Abu Marzouq. The delegation met at the home of Sheikh Sayed Abu Musameh in Rafah in the presence of Imad al-Falouji, Sufyan Abu Samra, Yusuf al-Ghariz, Saeed Za’rab, Yusuf Rizqa, and Khalil al-Hayya. During the meeting, the movement rebuilt and restructured its organization. The Gaza Strip was divided into five regions and the West Bank into seven, with one leader assigned to oversee the Gaza Strip and another the West Bank.

[8] Khalil al-Hayya biography, Marefa organization; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/227s5zca ; also see https://tinyurl.com/fn3k3vdt

[9] “Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas’ negotiating delegation after the Al-Aqsa floods”, Al-Jazeera, 9 September 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/mr3v7ppu

[10] Abd al-Latif Yusuf al-Talalqi, The Seeds of Hamas, op. cit., p. 376.

[11] “The Gaza Strip - 22 May 2007: B’Tselem calls for criminal investigation into Gaza bombing”, B’Tselem, 21 May 2007; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/y48y2ct4

[12] The Hamas spokesman (Abu Obeida) and local press reported that a bomb killed five Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades militants, including a senior al-Qassam commander and nephew of Hamas leader/Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalil al-Hayya in WikiLeaks, Cable #VZCZCXR07787, “Hamas Lashes Out at Fatah After Gaza City Bombing Kills 5 Al-Qassam Brigades Militants,” declaration issued 28 July 2008.

[13] Mahmoud al-Zahar told funeral mourners that Hamas will have “no mercy or compassion for the criminals who perpetrated the bombing, even if we must eliminate these groups by law, so they spend the rest of their lives in jail or are given the death penalty.” Islam Shahwan, spokesman for Hamas’ security force, informed the press that explosives seized from Fatah activists on July 26–27 2008 were of the same type used near Hamas Palestinian Legislative Council member Marwan Abu Ras’ home, and that both the attacks on Abu Ras and al-Qassam Brigades were part of a Fatah plot to sow chaos in the Gaza Strip. See WikiLeaks, op. cit., ¶4.

[14] Khalil al-Hayya, Felesteen, 12 November 2008.

[15] A. Dufairi, “The Interview - Khalil Al-Hayyah, Director of the Office of Arab and Islamic Relations in Hamas Movement - Part 2,” Al-Jazeera TV (Doha), 2014.

[16] SadaNews, 27 September 2025; retrieved online (1 November 2025); https://tinyurl.com/m66vt4m5

[17] Beatrice Farhat, “Hezbollah, Hamas delegations meet in Beirut as Gaza cease-fire talks resume,” Al-Monitor, 5 July 2024; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/47j5vf2x ; “Hezbollah Leader Meets Hamas Official to Discuss Gaza,” Asharq al-Awsat, 5 July 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov 2025) https://tinyurl.com/3d4d979v

[18] “Khalil al-Hayya,” Al-Jazeera Arabic Encyclopedia, 9 September 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/mu4259dd

[19] “Khalil al-Hayya,” Al-Jazeera Arabic Encyclopedia, 9 September 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/mu4259dd

[20] “Hamas delegation meets Syria’s Assad in Damascus,” Middle East Monitor, 19 October 2022. Al-Hayya remarked that: “We are restoring our relations with Syria with the consensus of our leadership [...] We have overcome the past [....] We are a united nation and resistance in the face of Zionist projects [...] Syria is supportive of the cause and the Palestinians, and we assured President Al-Assad that we are with a united Syria.”

[21] “Recognizing Palestine confuses the occupation.. Is Netanyahu risking annexation despite warnings from his allies?,” Al Quds, 23 September 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/ymajj7dp

[22] Paola Caridi, Hamas: From Resistance to Government [third edition] (Liverpool: Seven Stories, 2023), pp. 545-555 [e-book].

[23] According to Dr. Mohsen Saleh in an interview with Tarek Hamoud on 28 November 2020, at the beginning, the Executive Office and the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Levant, located in Amman, Jordan, were directly responsible for Hamas’ affairs through the Palestine Apparatus, which was established in 1985; Saleh added that when the 1988 Hamas Charter was written and issued in Gaza, it was approved by the Executive Office of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Levant abroad, since there was no separate Shura Council for Hamas, until it was established in 1990-1991; see: Tarek Hamoud, “Socializing Hamas: Evaluating the Structural Political Developments in the Islamic Palestinian Resistance Movement as a Ruling Authority Between 2006-2017”, University of Exeter Doctoral Thesis, 2023.

[24] See Ali Jarbawi, Hamas’ Bid to Lead the Palestinian People (Annandale, Virginia: United Association for Studies and Research, 1994), p. 15.

[25] Caridi, op. cit., p. 700 [e-book].

[26] The Ikhwan, whose branches in Gaza and the West Bank decided to combine under one umbrella with the Jordanian branch (thus further consolidating its position), had, in 1980-1981, briefly eclipsed Fatah, winning eight of the ten student union elections that year. In Gaza, the Ikhwan continued to dominate student politics throughout the 1980s and, in the West Bank, it typically gained around a third of the vote, with various PLO factions united against it following its early electoral success in 1981. The student Islamic bloc won in the Hebron University student council election for the 1980/1981 academic year. The Islamic student bloc also won electoral student council elections during the 1980-1983 years at Islamic University; here, Yahya al-Sinwar, who became head of Hamas in Gaza in 2017, emerged as a leader. Al-Sinwar was born in 1962 in Khan Yonis refugee camp. He was arrested by the Israelis in 1989 and released in 2011 in a prisoner swap between the zionist entity and Hamas. In 2017, he replaced Ismail Haniyeh as Hamas’ head of Gaza and was re-elected in 2021 for four more years. In 1983, an internal Muslim Brotherhood conference was held that stressed that the Palestinian issue did not conflict with the establishment of an Islamic state. In 1983, a predecessor organization to al-Majd was formed for intelligence-gathering efforts; al-Mujahidun was also formed for armed operations against Israel. The al-Majd predecessor organization, “al-Da’wah Security Service,” was comprised of Abd al-Rahman Tamraz, Ibrahim al-Muqadimah, and Ahmad al-Milh. The support of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestine Apparatus paved the ground for the beginnings of armed Islamic resistance inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the early 1980s, particularly in Gaza, where the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood operated through two underground organizations. The first was called the Security and Dawaa Apparatus (Jihaz Al-Amn wa al-Da’wa), Majd, founded in 1981 and re-established in 1985 by Yahya Al-Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza since 2017. Majd was dedicated to target Palestinian informants who cooperated with Israel. Another complementary organization was established when Ahmad Yassin created a military committee in 1982 in order to reprioritize the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood agenda in Gaza against Israel, and to start stockpiling weapons, before all committee members including Yassin were arrested in 1984, after the weapons had been discovered by Israeli occupation forces. The committee was re-established by Ahmad Yassin, after he had been released from jail in a prisoner exchange in 1985, and operated under the name of the Palestinian Mujahideen (Al-Mujahidoun Al-Filastinyoun). For a more comprehensive review of this history, see Mujamma Haraket, “The History Behind Hamas’s Intelligence Apparatus and Understanding its Approach to the Abu Shabab Gang and Other Collaborator Networks On Al-Majd, Al-Mujahidun Al-Filistinioun, and al-Qiwa al-Tanfīdhiyya”, Substack, 27 September 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://substack.com/home/post/p-174675875

[27] Leila Seurat, The Foreign Policy of Hamas (London: I.B. Tauris, 2022), p. 213; also see “Light at the End of Their Tunnels? Hamas and the Arab Uprisings,” International Crisis Group, Report No. 129, 14 August 2012.

[28] Seurat, op. cit., p. 213.

[29] Quoted in ibid.

[30] For more in the prison Leadership Committee, led by figures such as Sheikh Hassan Yousef, Muhammad Jamal al-Natsheh, Yahya al-Sinwar, Hassan al-Maqadmah, and Abdel Nasser ‘Issa, see: Mujamma Haraket, “A Short Study on the “Supreme Leadership Committee of Hamas Prisoners,” Substack, 20 October 2025; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://substack.com/home/post/p-176623519 ; also see: Abdel Issa, Dawr Alhayyat Alqiadiat Li’asraa Hamas Fi Sujun Alaihtilal Bitaeziz Makanat Al’asraa 2005-2017 [The role of the leadership body of Hamas prisoners in strengthening the status of the prisoners 2005-2017], 2018. Available at: https://tinyurl.com/km8twuw9 (Retrieved: 20 October 2025).

[31] In late 1995, several Hamas leaders—as well as other figures associated with the movement in the Occupied Territories—voiced their view that Hamas should take part in the 1996 Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Among those who did so were ‘Imad al-Faluji (who was later expelled), Ismail Haniyeh, Khaled al-Hindi, and Said al-Namruti; these individuals registered as independent candidates but were compelled to withdraw their names due to pressure from Hamas, which feared that their participation might confuse the public and undermine the movement’s official stance. Prior to the elections, Hamas issued a communiqué addressing the candidacy of these well-known figures, clarifying that their decision had been taken in a personal capacity and that they did not represent the movement (see Hamas leaflet, “A Statement of Clarification from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas),” dated 31 December 1995). Al-Zahar, who served as Hamas’s official spokesperson inside the Occupied Territories between 1994 and 1996, also supported participation in the electoral contest. In a written reply to the author on 9 March 1996, al-Zahar evaded a direct question concerning his opinion on Hamas’s decision to abstain from the elections, remarking: “My personal opinion differs from the opinion of the movement, and I do not wish to state it.” Outside the Occupied Territories, the foremost advocate for participating in the elections was Abu Marzouk, then head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, who was at the time imprisoned in the United States; his stance created overt confusion within the movement. In retrospect, Abu Marzouk explained that his position was grounded in an estimation of the organizational advantages Hamas might gain—specifically, favorable publicity and a central presence in ongoing political developments—rather than in any conviction that the council would possess real authority or the capacity to alter the course of events; see Abu Marzouk interview, Al-Hayat, 19 January 1997; and Abu Marzouk interview with Khaled Hroub, 19 May 1998, in Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Beirut: Institute of Palestine Studies, 2000), p. 225. The stance of Hamas’s allies in the Ten Resistance Organizations (TRO) also influenced the movement’s ultimate decision, since the choice to boycott the elections had been reached collectively within the alliance, making it difficult for Hamas to diverge from that joint resolution.

[32] Seurat, op. cit., p. 218. Also see: Al-Quds al-Arabi, 19 June 2013. Seurat, op. cit. p. 218 adds that, “[a]s for Mahmoud al-Zahar, he declared that relations with Iran were always the same, despite what the media were claiming. He added that there had been no change even after Rohani’s election to the presidency of the Islamic Republic.”

[33] Quoted in Daud Abdullah, Engaging the World: The Making of Hamas’ Foreign Policy (Johannesburg: Afro-Middle East Centre, 2020), p. 190. Also see: Abu Marzouk, “Hamas has not interfered in the affairs of Arab states,” Middle East Monitor, 27 January 2014. For a full review of the various debate and factions on the Syria issue, see: Abdalhakim Aziz Hanaini, Hamas’ Foreign Policy: Syria as a Case Study 2000-2015 (Beirut: Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultation, 2018).

[34] Marzouk, “Abu Marzouk responds to Assad’s accusations against Hamas,” Middle East Monitor News, 22 December 2014; also see Abdullah, op. cit., p. 193.

[35] Al-Badil, 4 November 2013; Palpress, 21 June 2013.

[36] Seurat, op. cit., p. 206.

[37] Alarab.co, 4 June 2013; also quoted in Seurat, op. cit., p. 218.

[38] Al-Quds al-Arabi, 11 June 2013; Al-Masri al-Youm, 19 June 2013.

[39] Noqta, 11 March 2014.

[40] “Hamas backs ‘legitimacy’ of President Hadi in Yemen,” Middle East Eye, 30 March 2015; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/2stdcb22; “Hamas Declares Support for Political Legitimacy in Yemen,” France 24, 28 March 2015; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/wwv74yw2

[41] Al-Nahar, 27 February 2015.

[42] Seurat, op. cit., p. 98.

[43] Arabi21, 15 March 2016.

[44] “Hamas calls on Hezbollah to unite fight against Israel,” 23 January 2015; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/2mptd53j

[45] Quoted in Arab48, 22 January 2015; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/2p9rh4j5

[46] “Hamas is caught between courting Saudi Arabia and appeasing Iran,” Al-Akhbar, 30 March 2015; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/2kcwu8rx

[47] “A rift has emerged within Hamas over Operation Decisive Storm. Gaza leaders reject Mashaal’s statement supporting the campaign against the Houthis, while Iran threatens to cut off aid to the Qassam Brigades and grant the Sabiroun group freedom of movement in the Gaza Strip”, Youm7, 6 April 2015; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/47sby2j5

[48] “Hamas denies any disagreement among its members regarding Operation Decisive Storm”, Al-Jazeera, 7 April 2015; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/c4zdtyk6

[49] Seurat, op. cit., p. 100.

[50] Al-Arabiyya, 21 July 2019.

[51] Paraphrased in Seurat, op. cit., p. 100.

[52] Basem Ezbidi, “Not Rebel Governance? Hamas’s Rule” in Ibrahim Fraihat and Abdalhadi Alijla (Eds.), Rebel Governance in the Middle East (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore), p. 297. It is also significant that, during the so-called “Operation Restoring Hope,” the Ansar Allah leader, Abd-al-Malik Badr-al-Din al-Houthi, extended an offer to Saudi Arabia, proposing a prisoner exchange arrangement. The proposal entailed Ansar Allah releasing a Saudi pilot whose fighter jet had been shot down over Yemen, in return for the release of Hamas members detained in Saudi Arabia; see: “Yemen’s Al-Houthi Offers to Exchange Saudi Pilots for Hamas Prisoners,” Middle East Monitor, 27 March, 2020. By this point, Ansar Allah and Hamas had established a strong working relationship. This relationship was formally initiated when the Hamas representative in Yemen, Mu’adh Abu Shamala, met in Sana’a with Muhammad al-Bukhaiti, a foreign relations official and political bureau member of Ansar Allah; see: “Hamas representative in Yemen receives Houthi delegation,” Palestine Information Center, 4 March 2019; retrieved online (1 Nov. 2025): https://shorturl.at/9ctpQ. However, contacts had already been established beforehand. It is also worth underscoring that Ansar Allah identified with the Palestinian resistance more broadly well before this formal relationship was initiated. For example, in the summer of 2017, Ansar Allah supreme leader Abd al-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi declared that the “Israeli enemy” should “bring the Yemeni people into its calculations in any future confrontation with Hezbollah or with the Palestinian people,” emphasizing that “we are prepared to send our fighters.” See: “Leader of the Revolution: Sanaa Demonstration Show of Sympathy with Al-Aqsa, We Are Prepared to Fight the Israeli Enemy,” Al-Thawrah, 1 July 2017. In 2019, Abd al-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi stated that Ansar Allah’s rejection of “American hegemony” constituted a “volitional and natural stance” that converged “with that of our free brethren of this nation: with the Iranians, with Hizbu’llah, with the resistance in Palestine, with the freemen of Syria, with the freemen in Iraq.” See: Al-Masirah TV, 17 August 2019. This convergence within the muqawama/Axis of Resistance was markedly evident following the 2021 war. Indeed, during the aftermath of the “Sword of Jerusalem” war (designated as “Operation Guardian of the Walls” by the zionist occupation) between Hamas and the zionist entity in May 2021—during which Hasan Nusru’llah warned that any attack by the zionist entity on Al-Aqsa Mosque would precipitate a regional war—the Ansar Allah supreme leader Abd al-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi declared that Ansar Allah “was part of the equation declared by Al-Sayyid Nusru’llah [. . .] and shall be present and active in any way we can as part of the axis of resistance.” See: “Ansar Allah: We Are Part of the Jerusalem Equation,” Al-Akhbar, 4 June 2021. According to Daniel Sobelman, “[i]t was in 2019 that the Houthis ‘fully adopted the rhetoric and style of the axis of resistance’ and became ]a principal component’ in it.” Daniel Sobelman, Axis of Resistance Asymmetric Deterrence and Rules of the Game in Contemporary Middle East Conflicts (Albany: SUNY Press, 2025), p. 159; also see: Luqman Abdallah, “The General’s Powerful Arm in Yemen,” Al-Akhbar, 6 January 2020.

[53] “Al-Hayya: We reject the formation of any alliance to fight Iran,” Al-Jazeera Mubasher, 30 August 2018; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/4yn6nr6m

[54] Ibid.

[55] Quoted in “Al-Hayya: An explosion is coming for Israel,” The Palestinian Information Center, 21 March 2018; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/49p7drfp

[56] “‘Hamas’ Defends Ties With Iran”, Asharq Al-Awsat, 17 January 2020; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/mvf3nyy9 ; Also see Adam Rasgon, “Hamas says it won’t accept Israel dragging feet on lifting Gaza blockade,” The Times of Israel, 16 January 2020; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/3rwwhaua

[57] “In the news: Who is Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas leader targeted by Israel?,” Reuters (Arabic), 11 September 2025; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/3nh98fkn ; Following Haniyeh’s martyrdom on 31 July 2023, Haniyeh organized a press release in Tehran; “Hamas senior official says Haniyeh was hit ‘directly’ by missile,” Reuters, 31 July 2024; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/2re8dy6b

[58] “Iran’s supreme leader meets top Hamas leaders in Tehran,” Xinhua, 8 February 2025; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/35j29yda

[59] “The victory of the people of Gaza was a victory over the US,” Khamenei.ir, 8 February 2025; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/yxean2ne

[60] Ibid.

[61] “Hamas Leadership Council members meet Iran’s foreign minister in Doha,” Islamic Republic of Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4 September 2025; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/425xjbez

[62] “Khalil al-Hayya Expresses Gratitude to Iran,” Taghrib News, 10 October 2025; retrieved online (2 Nov. 2025): https://tinyurl.com/bdpe94jh

[63] Ezbidi, op. cit., p. 308.