Khaled Meshaal Elected Head of Hamas Foreign Bureau

Former Hamas chief in exile Khaled Meshaal was elected to head the movement’s foreign bureau. Hamas made the announcement that Meshaal would serve as “head of the movement’s foreign political bureau” on Monday. Meshaal lives in Qatar; he and his family fled from the West Bank for Jordan during the 1967 war. Meshaal headed the Hamas political bureau from 1996 to 2017. He was replaced by Ismail Haniyeh, who lived in Gaza.

Meshaal survived an assassination attempt by Israel in 1997. He also has lived in Jordan and Syria.

His election comes more than a month before scheduled Palestinian legislative elections and ahead of the presidential election scheduled for July 31.