Haniya is the new boss of Hamas

gaza city — Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas elected ex-Gaza Strip chief Ismail Haniya as its new leader on Saturday, days after revising its founding charter to ease its stance on Israel.

Haniya, seen as a pragmatist within the movement, is expected to remain in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave run by Hamas since 2007.

His predecessor Khaled Meshaal lives in exile in Doha and had completed the maximum two terms in office.

“The Hamas Shura Council on Saturday elected Ismail Haniya as head of the movement’s political bureau,” the group’s official website announced.

He beat Mussa Abu Marzuk and Mohamed Nazzal in a videoconference vote of the ruling council’s members in Gaza, the West Bank and outside the Palestinian territories.

The 54-year-old with a salt-andpepper beard takes charge of Hamas as it seeks to ease its international isolation while not marginalising hardliners within the movement.

On Monday, it unveiled a new policy document easing its stance on Israel after having long called for its destruction.

The document notably accepts the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza, the territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

It also says its struggle is not against Jews because of their religion but against Israel as an occupier.

The original 1988 charter will not be dropped, just supplemented, in a move some analysts see as a way of maintaining the backing of hardliners.

“The new charter and Haniya’s election are two of the biggest events in recent years,” a European official based in Jerusalem told AFP Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The question is how is Hamas going to build on this momentum,” he said, speaking in English.

Leila Seurat, a researcher at the Paris-based Centre for International Studies and Research, said that the election of a Gaza-based leader was a shift for the movement, which had been directed from Doha and from Damascus since Israel assassinated founding father Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza in 2004.

“His election is a sign that the Gaza leadership has regained the upper hand from those outside,” she said.