Diaa al-Kahlout
The New Arab / August 15, 2026
Doha – Hamas will hold internal elections in Gaza next week, with Ali al-Amoudi emerging as the frontrunner to succeed Khalil al-Hayya.
Hamas is set to hold internal elections in Gaza next week to choose a new leader for the besieged enclave, with senior figure Ali al-Amoudi emerging as the frontrunner, sources close to the Palestinian movement told The New Arab.
The vote will determine who succeeds Khalil al-Hayya as head of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza after Hayya was elected overall head of the movement’s political bureau in July following a contest with former leader Khaled Meshaal.
Sources told The New Arab that Amoudi is currently considered the most likely candidate for the Gaza position.
Amoudi was regarded as one of the Hamas figures closest to former political bureau chief Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces in Rafah in October 2024.
However, Hamas sources said Amoudi has also emerged, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, as an advocate of a more pragmatic political approach.
According to the sources, he was among the most influential Hamas leaders advocating internally for the movement to accept the Gaza roadmap proposed in late July by Nikolay Mladenov, US President Donald Trump’s so-called Peace Council envoy.
They said Amoudi also supports strengthening Hamas’s political track, including participation in Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for November.
He also played a supporting role in efforts to secure the October 2025 ceasefire agreement, whose negotiations were held in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The sources said that if Amoudi’s election is confirmed, it would be an important indication of the direction Hamas’s leadership in Gaza intends to take in the coming period.
Under Hamas’s organisational structure, the movement elects a head of its Gaza bureau every four years, alongside leadership structures representing the West Bank and members based abroad. Hamas divides its organisation into three principal regions: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the diaspora.
On 20 July, Hamas announced that Hayya had been elected head of its political bureau, succeeding Sinwar.
Two Hamas sources told The New Arab at the time that Hayya secured a large share of votes from Hamas members in West Bank and Israeli prisons.
Meshaal, his principal rival and a former head of the political bureau, received near-unanimous backing from Hamas voters abroad as well as a portion of the West Bank vote, according to the sources.
The prospective Gaza leadership election comes as Hamas signals that it intends to participate in the Palestinian political process.
Hamas political bureau member Husam Badran said on Wednesday that the movement would take part in upcoming Palestinian elections “within the broadest possible national coalition”.
He also rejected what he described as the “imposition of conditions” on factions and other parties seeking to participate.
Diaa al-Kahlout – Palestinian journalist from Gaza; bureau chief of Al-Araby al-Jadeed’s Gaza office
