January 13, 2026 l By Stephen — Dalena Reporters
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Senior figures within the Hamas movement have confirmed that preparations are underway for internal leadership elections expected to take place in the coming months, as the Islamist organisation seeks to rebuild its command structure following sustained losses of top commanders during the ongoing war with Israel.
According to sources within Hamas who spoke to international news agencies, the group is advancing planning efforts for electoral processes to be held “at the appropriate time in areas where conditions on the ground allow it,” with the first months of 2026 projected as the likely timeline for convening the vote.
Security setbacks and battlefield casualties have dramatically reshaped Hamas’s leadership landscape. The armed group’s previous chief, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by Israeli forces in July 2024 while in Tehran, where he was reportedly engaged in regional negotiations. His successor, Yahya Sinwar, who assumed leadership shortly thereafter, was also killed by Israeli operations in Rafah in late 2025, further decimating the organisation’s top echelon.
In the interim, Hamas abandoned the traditional model of a single leader in favour of a five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a sole head amid concerns that individuals could be targeted by Israeli military strikes.
The forthcoming electoral process will include the formation of a new 50-member Shoura Council, a consultative body dominated by religious figures and central to determining the movement’s strategic direction. Members of the Shoura Council are selected every four years by Hamas’s three branches — the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, and the external leadership and the council, in turn, elects the 18-member political bureau and its chief.
Among the names emerging as potential candidates for the top leadership role are Khalil Al-Hayya, a Gaza native and veteran negotiator credited with maintaining relationships with rival Palestinian factions including Fatah, and Khaled Meshaal, a long-serving former head of the political bureau who currently leads the movement’s diaspora engagements.
Hayya’s backing from both the Shoura Council and Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, positions him as a strong contender, according to internal sources. Other possible aspirants include West Bank Hamas leader Zaher Jabarin and Shoura Council head Nizar Awadallah, reflecting a broader push within the movement to balance political, military and regional considerations.
The planned leadership elections underscore the organisation’s efforts to adapt its governance mechanisms under wartime conditions, even as the conflict continues to inflict heavy humanitarian tolls on civilians in the Gaza Strip, where more than two million residents face acute shortages of essential supplies and infrastructure amid protracted hostilities.
Observers say that Hamas’s move toward formalised internal elections also reflects a broader need for cohesion and legitimacy within the movement’s ranks at a moment of intense pressure from both external military forces and internal organisational fragmentation.