Khaled Meshaal

Assassination attempt in Jordan and resettlement in Syria

Hamas emerged in the early 1990s as the main opponent of the PLO’s efforts to make peace with Israel, which were embodied in the Oslo Accords, a series of agreements between Israel and the PLO which provided for limited Palestinian self-governance in some areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hamas began to stage suicide bombings against Israeli civilian targets in 1994.

In 1997 Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, authorized the assassination of Meshaal in retribution for Hamas’s suicide bombings. Undercover Israeli agents approached Meshaal on the street in Amman, Jordan, and surreptitiously sprayed him with a slow-acting poison. The plan, intended to be covert, went awry when one of Meshaal’s bodyguards noticed the attack and detained two of the agents before they could escape. The attempt threatened the recent peace treaty (1994) between Jordan and Israel, prompting U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton, on behalf of Jordan’s King Hussein, to intervene and pressure Netanyahu into providing the antidote. Meshaal awoke from his coma two days after he was poisoned.

In 1999 Jordan cracked down on Hamas, briefly imprisoning Meshaal before expelling the political bureau from the country. After briefly settling in Qatar, Meshaal established a new permanent headquarters in Damascus in 2001.

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Hamas enters politics

Meshaal became the movement’s leader and central figure in 2004, following the assassination of Hamas founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and the assassination of Yassin’s successor, Abd al-Aziz al-Rantissi, less than a month later. In 2006 Hamas participated in the parliamentary election of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and won the majority of seats. Ismail Haniyeh became prime minister, making him the de facto leader of Hamas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The participation of Hamas in the PA led to sanctions as the international community called on Hamas to recognize Israel. Meshaal stopped short, stating in an interview in January 2007: “It is true that [our readiness to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip] means that there will be an entity or a state called ‘Israel’ on the remainder of the Palestinian lands [i.e., Israel proper]. But I am not cooperating with this reality in terms of recognition or concession.” Tensions between Palestinian factions came to a head months later, resulting in violence that left Hamas in control over the Gaza Strip but dismissed from the PA, which remained in charge in the West Bank.

Support for the Arab Spring, Meshaal’s fallout with Iran and Egypt, and the move to Qatar

The events of the Arab Spring in the early 2010s brought a number of changes for Hamas and for Meshaal. Amid the early optimism of the pro-democracy protests, Meshaal indicated his intention to steer Hamas toward popular, rather than armed, resistance. But he faced opposition within Hamas and, after conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas in late 2012, he reaffirmed Hamas’s commitment to armed resistance.

Meanwhile, months after Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak was ousted, Egypt opened its border crossing with the Gaza Strip from 2011 to 2013. This allowed Meshaal to visit the Gaza Strip in 2012 for the first time in his life.

In Syria, the Hamas political bureau’s decade-long residence in Damascus came to an end when what began as a crackdown by Syrian security forces against anti-government protesters in 2011 evolved into a full-scale civil war. (See Syrian Civil War.) Meshaal relocated the bureau to Qatar and spoke out in support of the Syrian opposition. Iran, a close ally of the Syrian regime, greatly reduced its support for Hamas, which by some estimates had reached more than $200 million a year. In 2013, when the Egyptian military ousted Pres. Mohamed Morsi and reimposed restrictions on the border with the Gaza Strip, Hamas began to struggle to meet its financial needs. Over the next several years Hamas attempted, unsuccessfully, to close the gap by reconciling with the PA and, subsequently, levying new taxes on the Gaza Strip’s impoverished population. Hamas became increasingly unpopular, while the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other militant groups gained momentum.

Changing leadership in Hamas

In 2017 Hamas reshuffled its leadership. Yahya Sinwar, a hard-line but skilled negotiator between Hamas factions, replaced Haniyeh as the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Months later Haniyeh was elected to replace Meshaal as the head of the political bureau. This marked a transfer in the balance of power within Hamas from those living abroad, such as Meshaal, to those living in the Gaza Strip. The replacement of Meshaal also offered Hamas the opportunity for rapprochement with Iran. Haniyeh cultivated close ties with Iranian leadership, making notable appearances at the funeral of Qassem Soleimani (2020) and the inaugurations of Iranian presidents Ebrahim Raisi (2021) and Masoud Pezeshkian (2024). In 2021 Meshaal returned to leadership in a lesser capacity when he was designated Hamas’s head for Palestinian refugees and exiles.

Hamas’s leadership faced a new era of challenges after its brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killed about 1,200 people and took more than 240 others hostage. Israel launched a devastating war targeting Hamas, especially its militant wing and its leadership in the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh was the top interlocutor in international efforts to mediate a ceasefire, but he was killed in Tehrān (Iran’s capital) hours after attending Pezeshkian’s inauguration and just weeks after Israel said it had killed Hamas’s top military commander, Mohammed Deif. With Hamas’s leadership in crisis, Meshaal appeared as one of the candidates best positioned to take over for Haniyeh as its international representative.