Hamas has elected Khalil Al-Hayya as its new leader for a transitional one-year term, two senior movement sources told Al Manassa on condition of anonymity on Thursday.
Al-Hayya's election fills the vacancy created by the assassination of Yahya Sinwar by Israeli forces in October 2024.
Preliminary results indicated that Al-Hayya, the movement's acting political bureau chairman, secured about 65% of the Shura Council's vote, outpacing Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' diaspora office chairman, who received the remaining 35%.
The vote reflected consensus across the movement's global branches, but the sources told Al Manassa the West Bank's voting bloc was the decisive factor, delivering what they described as the “major shift” that secured Al-Hayya's victory.
The internal ballot, which also filled four vacant seats on the Political Bureau previously held by leaders assassinated by Israel, was conducted across the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the movement's offices abroad.
In Gaza, the 58-member Shura Council employed a secretive voting protocol designed to evade Israeli surveillance and targeted strikes, one of the sources affirmed.
According to the sources, the competition narrowed to Al-Hayya and Meshaal after Shura Council Chairman Mohammed Darwish and senior officials Zaher Jabarin and Nizar Awad declined to seek the position.
The elections further covered vacancies previously held by high-ranking officials assassinated by Israel.
Official results are expected by early next week, with leaders and members of the election oversight committee currently working on the formal declaration in Turkey, the sources said.
Last week, Palestinian mourners in Gaza City carried the body of Azzam Khalil Al-Hayya, the son of the newly elected leader, who succumbed to critical injuries sustained during a direct Israeli bombardment of the Al-Daraj neighborhood.
Al-Hayya, who was unable to attend his son's funeral, described the strike as an “extension of Israeli aggression” intended to exert pressure on the movement’s delegation during ongoing ceasefire negotiations, including his other son, who was targeted in an Israeli assassination attempt in Doha back in September.
“I say to the occupation and to all who hear us: we are the owners of a cause,” Al-Hayya said in a statement released via the movement's official channels. “The killing of our children or our leaders will not terrorize us. Our children are the children of the Palestinian people, without distinction, and our feelings toward them are one.”
