Hamas is fighting for its very survival in Gaza. Since October 7 last year, the terrorist group of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, has been fighting for its very survival. After it carried out a massacre in Israel, thousands of its people died in the war against Israel’s army. Its local cadres are hiding in tunnels, it is internationally isolated, and its former stronghold is a field of rubble. But Khaled Mashal, the political head of Hamas, doesn’t want to see this as a defeat, especially since he doesn’t live in Gaza.
The balance of power is unbalanced, he repeatedly tells the public from his palace in Qatar. Hamas is resilient and the resistance goes through different phases, it is a natural up and down. In addition, public opinion in the world is changing in view of the tens of thousands of More deaths in Gaza against Israel. “This shows that the world recognizes that we are right,” says the intellectual head of the terrorists.
Mashal was head of Hamas’s political bureau from 1996 to 2017. Although he has now handed over the office to his successor Ismail Haniya, the 67-year-old is still considered Hamas’ gray eminence – and the leader who is most likely to save it from ruin. Anyone who wants to understand what options Hamas has – according to those around them – should speak to Mashal. But since October 7 he has hardly met any journalists, especially not Western ones. When he speaks in public, he wears a pinstripe suit and his beard shines silver. He presents himself as both statesmanlike and tough, allowing for contradictions but also being assertive. He makes one thing clear again and again: In his view, the terrorist attack on October 7, which caused so much death and destruction not only in Israel but also in Gaza, was absolutely justified.
He says sentences like: “October 7 is an important round in the fight against the occupation,” as if the attacks in southern Israel were a spontaneous popular uprising and not one initiated by Hamas. “The uprising has shown that the Palestinian people no longer want to accept the occupation and are determined to shake it off.” He denies that Hamas has killed civilians in Israel – despite all the evidence. And he accepts that as a result of the attack Gaza is now in ruins and tens of thousands have lost their lives there. Destruction affects all peoples who suffered under occupation. It is not just Gaza that is now drowning in a firestorm, but also his own life’s work. The physicist not only co-founded Hamas at the end of the 1980s, but as head of the Politburo he made it what it is today.
Under his leadership, the Islamist movement won the parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories in 2006, a year later it seized power in Gaza and became a political actor with which even Israel negotiated indirectly. In 2017, Mashal left Hamas a new charter in which it accepted a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders – but it could not bring itself to recognize Israel. He was a mastermind and chief diplomat at the same time. He must have known what consequences an attack like the one on October 7 would have for Hamas. Did he still approve it? Or did he not even know? He was in Istanbul at the time of the attack. A video shows him in an office there with other Hamas leaders, watching the live coverage of the Qatari news channel al-Jazeera and spontaneously kneeling down to pray.
It is difficult to estimate who is really in charge in the Hamas leadership and exactly what makes them tick. There is a central Politburo, a Shura Council and other committees whose members are known and determined in internal elections. To the outside world, Hamas leaders always appear united and united. Behind the scenes, however, different currents are fighting for influence. For years, the exiled leaders around Mashal, who were considered relatively pragmatic, set the tone. Since 2017, the balance has shifted and new, far more radical members have seized power. They mostly come from Gaza, the real stronghold of Hamas. They formed the government there until the war and stationed their armed wing, the Kassam Brigades.
His successor, Ismail Haniya, is a hardliner, as is Yahya Sinwar, the current head of Hamas in Gaza. Sinwar is considered the main person responsible for the October 7 attack. He comes from the Qassam Brigades environment and has gained enormous influence in recent years. In his statements, Mashal repeatedly says that all wings work together harmoniously and that within Hamas, long-standing political leaders have their influence, as does the military wing. All important decisions are always made within the framework of the overall organization. Nevertheless, the rumor persists that Sinwar acted on his own initiative on October 7. Sinwar, who grew up in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis and spent many years in Israeli prisons, is considered brutal and ruthless. He is said to have previously executed suspected collaborators with his own hands.
Internal reports from inside Hamas have long been secretly expressing doubts about Sinwar’s strategic abilities. The exiled leadership in Qatar had already tried to oust Sinwar from power in 2021 when the Gaza Politburo was reshuffled – but in vain. It is now probably too late for such a change of course. Instead, if Hamas wants to have any future at all, it will have to reposition itself in exile.
There is probably no way around Mashal. In contrast to other Hamas leaders, he appears worldly. He would have the chance to do that because Ismail Haniya may have miscalculated. The current boss is considered the driving force behind the close alliance with Iran that Hamas has entered into in recent years. But the alliance has had only limited payoffs. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah opened a second front in northern Israel on October 8 in support of Hamas. Otherwise, the majority of allies just pay lip service. Mashal, on the other hand, was probably never an ardent supporter of Tehran. During the Syria war, he opposed the Assad regime and its Iranian supporters. This led to a rift between Hamas and Tehran that took years to resolve. With this positioning, Mashal has kept his options open in the Gulf. Nevertheless, it would not be easy for him to break through Hamas’ isolation. Because it is not only hated in the West, but also in many Gulf monarchies. And the negotiations with Israel about a prisoner exchange and a long-term ceasefire in Gaza, which Hamas actually urgently needs for the purpose of reorganization, are also not making progress.
This is not least because Hamas only wants to release the remaining hostages in return for a permanent ceasefire and a withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza. The relationship with Fatah is also complicated, because without reconciliation with the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, it will be difficult for Hamas to have a say in future negotiations on the post-war order. But the Fatah people have not forgotten how they were violently thrown out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007. They are correspondingly unwilling to accommodate their weakened competitor.
It is questionable what will remain of Hamas after the war. If it were to lose its former stronghold in Gaza, power would once again lie with the exiles in the Gulf and therefore with Khaled Mashal. For him personally, that would be a return to the top. But the new, old leader of Hamas might then be a king without a kingdom.
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