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Khaled Meshaal, Who Survived Israeli Assassination Attempt, Tipped to Be New Hamas Leader

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal hugs senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh before leaving Gaza Strip December 10, 2012. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah/File
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal hugs senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh before leaving Gaza Strip December 10, 2012. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah/File
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Khaled Meshaal, Who Survived Israeli Assassination Attempt, Tipped to Be New Hamas Leader

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal hugs senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh before leaving Gaza Strip December 10, 2012. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah/File
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal hugs senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh before leaving Gaza Strip December 10, 2012. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah/File

Khaled Meshaal has been tipped as one of several possible candidates to become Hamas’s new political leader after Wednesday’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the movement’s political bureau, The Telegraph reported Thursday.
Meshaal became known around the world in 1997 after Israeli agents injected him with poison in a botched assassination attempt on a street outside his office in the Jordanian capital Amman.
The hit, ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, so enraged Jordan’s then-King Hussein bin Talal, that he spoke of hanging the would-be killers and scrapping Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel unless the antidote was handed over.
Israel did so and also agreed to free Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, only to assassinate him seven years later in Gaza.
Meshaal, 68, became Hamas' political leader in exile the year before Israel tried to eliminate him, a post that enabled him to represent the Palestinian group at meetings with foreign governments around the world, unhindered by tight Israeli travel restrictions that affected other Hamas officials.
Meshaal’s relations with Iran have been strained due to his past support for the revolt in 2011 against Syrian president Bashar Assad.

Hamas sources said Meshaal is expected to be chosen as paramount leader of the group to replace Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Iran in the early hours of Wednesday, with Tehran and Hamas vowing retribution against Israel.
Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya, who is based in Qatar and has headed Hamas negotiators in indirect Gaza truce talks with Israel, has also been a possibility for the leadership as he is a favorite of Iran and its allies in the region.
Meshaal was born in Silwad near the West Bank city of Ramallah. He moved as a boy with his family to the Gulf Arab state of Kuwait. At the age of 15 he joined the Muslim Brotherhood.
Meshaal became a schoolteacher before turning to lobbying for Hamas from abroad for many years and he was in charge of international fund-raising in Jordan when he barely escaped assassination.
Friction between Meshaal and the Gaza-based Hamas leadership surfaced over his attempts to promote reconciliation with President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Palestinian Authority.
Meshaal then announced that he wanted to step down as leader over such tensions and in 2017 was replaced by his Gaza deputy Haniyeh, who was elected to head the group's political office, also operating overseas.
According to the report, if Meshaal is chosen as the new Hamas leader, he will face great challenges in guiding Hamas during the next phase of the conflict with Israel, especially after the recent attack that led to a significant escalation of tensions between both sides.
Currently, all eyes remain on Hamas to determine its new leader amid complex political and security challenges at the Palestinian level and the broader international scale.

 

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Arab World

Israel Opens Criminal Probes Over Killings of Hind Rajab and Gaza Rescue Workers, Military Says

Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)
Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)
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Israel Opens Criminal Probes Over Killings of Hind Rajab and Gaza Rescue Workers, Military Says

Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)
Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)

Israel's military will open internal investigations over its troops' killings in Gaza of Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in January 2024 and 15 emergency and aid workers in March 2025, it said on Wednesday, although rights groups said such probes rarely lead to convictions.

The military said the investigation decisions followed probes by its Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism. It released decisions regarding five incidents involving the deaths of Palestinians. They included an examination ‌of the killings ‌of seven aid workers with the World ‌Central ⁠Kitchen charity in ⁠April 2024. On that incident, the military said there was "no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct that would justify the opening of a criminal investigation."

"For more than a thousand days, the Israeli army has been conducting intensive combat across numerous fronts, carrying out a wide range of military missions ⁠in an exceptionally complex operational reality," the Israeli ‌military said.

"As part of the military's ‌obligations under international law and Israeli domestic law, the army ‌examines exceptional incidents that occurred during combat," the military said.

Israeli ‌rights groups say that criminal misconduct investigations into Israeli troops over the killing of Palestinians rarely lead to convictions.

"Nearly zero indictments are served relative to the number of complaints of soldiers and ‌commanders who commit offenses. In rare cases when commanders or soldiers are convicted, they receive ridiculously ⁠lenient ⁠sentences compared with the severity of the offense," a spokesperson for the Israeli rights organization Yesh Din said.

During Israel's offensive in response to an October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, Hind Rajab was pinned down in a car for hours, begging Palestinian medics over a mobile phone to send help, while her aunt, uncle and three cousins already lay dead.

When an ambulance finally arrived, contact with the girl and the rescuers themselves was lost. Twelve days later, the bodies of the girl, her relatives and two ambulance workers were recovered from the area.

Arab World

Syria Arrests Assad-era Officer who Fled Austria after Conviction

A man walks past heavily-damaged and destroyed buildings in the Jobar suburb northeast of Damascus on August 12, 2026. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
A man walks past heavily-damaged and destroyed buildings in the Jobar suburb northeast of Damascus on August 12, 2026. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
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Syria Arrests Assad-era Officer who Fled Austria after Conviction

A man walks past heavily-damaged and destroyed buildings in the Jobar suburb northeast of Damascus on August 12, 2026. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
A man walks past heavily-damaged and destroyed buildings in the Jobar suburb northeast of Damascus on August 12, 2026. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)

Syrian security forces have arrested a former Assad-era security officer who fled Austria after being sentenced to eight years in prison for abusing detainees and returned to his hometown in southern Syria, state news agency SANA said on Tuesday night.

Lieutenant Colonel Musab Abu Rukba was arrested in the city of Nawa in Daraa province by internal security forces in coordination ⁠with the counter-terrorism ⁠department, SANA said, citing the security forces.

Abu Rukba had been convicted by a Vienna court last month of bodily harm, aggravated coercion and sexual assault against detained opponents of former President Bashar al-Assad while he headed the police’s criminal investigations department in the northern city of Raqqa more than a ⁠decade ago.

He had pleaded not guilty.

Reuters reported on Friday that Abu Rukba had left Austria while challenging his eight-year sentence on appeal and arrived in Nawa in early August, where his family held a reception to celebrate his return.

SANA said on Tuesday that Abu Rukba had entered Syria illegally after fleeing Austria and that authorities had tracked him down in Nawa. He had been referred to the relevant authorities to complete legal procedures ahead of prosecution, it said.

It was ⁠not immediately ⁠clear what charges Abu Rukba could face in Syria or whether Austria had requested his arrest or extradition.

A spokesperson for the Austrian court that convicted him told Reuters at the time that Abu Rukba had not been considered a flight risk before his trial because he had lived in Austria since 2014 and was seeking asylum there with his family.

He was not held in custody during the trial or subjected to other restrictions, and his departure from Austria did not breach Austrian laws or court orders while the appeals process remained underway, the spokesperson said.

Arab World

Israel Says It Recovered Remains of Soldier Killed in Lebanon in 1982

Destruction is pictured in the village of Arnoun as seen from nearby Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on August 11, 2026. (AFP)
Destruction is pictured in the village of Arnoun as seen from nearby Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on August 11, 2026. (AFP)
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Israel Says It Recovered Remains of Soldier Killed in Lebanon in 1982

Destruction is pictured in the village of Arnoun as seen from nearby Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on August 11, 2026. (AFP)
Destruction is pictured in the village of Arnoun as seen from nearby Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on August 11, 2026. (AFP)

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had repatriated the remains of Sgt First Class Yehuda Katz, a soldier killed in Lebanon 44 years ago, in a joint operation with the Mossad intelligence agency.

Katz was the last Israeli soldier declared missing in the Sultan Yacoub battle against Syrian forces in eastern Lebanon in 1982.

"His return to Israel was made possible through efforts based on accurate intelligence... that lasted more than four decades," the military said in a statement.

It is not clear where his body was found.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commended the security forces and said that "for many years, I approved numerous clandestine operations to locate the missing soldiers of Sultan Yacoub. I promised their families that we would never stop working to bring them home."

In a separate statement, President Isaac Herzog said that "the circle that remained an open and bleeding wound from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub is finally closed," and that he had kept a photograph of Yehuda Katz hanging in his office as "a daily reminder of our sacred duty to bring our sons home and leave no one behind".

Katz's remains were brought to Israel and identified at an institute for the identification of fallen soldiers under the military rabbinate, the military said.

Three Israeli soldiers had been missing for decades after the Sultan Yacoub battle. In 2019, the military announced the repatriation of the remains of Sgt First Class Zachariah Baumel, while in May 2025 it said it had recovered the body of Sgt First Class Tzvika Feldman "in the heart of Syria".