Hamas’s Gaza governor Yahya Sinwar was said Tuesday to have lost the internal Hamas elections to one of his opponents, Nizar Awadullah, according to Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV.
No official confirmation was immediately made by the Hamas terror group. The Palestinian movement’s internal elections are normally conducted in utter secrecy over a period of months.
Al-Mayadeen reported that Sinwar lost to Awadullah by seven votes. The Hamas Shura Council, a quasi-legislative body within the terror group, casts ballots to determine who will sit in the group’s senior spots.
Palestinian reports from Gaza, however, indicated that three rounds of internal voting by senior Hamas members had failed to see any candidate win a majority of votes. A final vote was said to be delayed to a later date, according to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency.
Sinwar, a long-time terror chief who spent decades in Israeli jails, had been marked by many as an ambitious Hamas official with his eye on the terror group’s top spot — currently occupied by political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}
