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New Hamas chief tours native Gaza, highlights power shift

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AP Gaza City
Last Updated : May 08 2017 | 11:22 PM IST
The newly elected leader of Hamas paid tribute in Gaza today to Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel, his first appearance in the new role and a sign of the group's internal power shift from the diaspora to the Hamas-ruled territory.
Since the Palestinian group's founding 30 years ago, its top leaders had moved between Arab capitals such as Beirut, Damascus, and Doha, Qatar. On Saturday, Hamas confirmed it had elected Ismail Haniyeh, a former Gaza prime minister, to replace Qatar-based Khaled Mashaal as head of the group's political bureau, the top job.
Haniyeh, born in the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City, is well known in the tiny, crowded coastal strip of 2 million people.
He briefly visited a Gaza City "solidarity tent" for hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, arriving in his familiar white SUV and accompanied by bodyguards.
Photos of the prisoners were displayed in the tent.
"It's my honor to shoulder the responsibility of leading the political bureau of this large movement of holy resistance," he said after greeting local security chiefs.

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Hamas' shift to Gaza comes at a time of growing financial pressure on the territory, ruled by the Islamic militant group since it drove out forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
Abbas, who oversees autonomous enclaves in the West Bank, has reduced salary payments and electricity subsidies to Gaza in recent weeks and said more steps would follow. It's part of an attempt to force Hamas to cede ground in Gaza after years of failed reconciliation attempts.
Haniyeh, 54, also faces other challenges, such as restrictions on movement. Israel and Egypt imposed a border blockade on Gaza after the Hamas takeover, keeping the territory's borders sealed most of the time. Hamas leaders have been able to travel abroad from time to time, but only with Egyptian coordination.
Haniyeh, who served as Mashaal's deputy for the past four years, most recently traveled abroad in September. He first visited Saudi Arabia on a Muslim pilgrimage, then traditional backers Qatar and Turkey, before returning to Gaza in January.
Hamas expert Khaled Hroub said the shift to Gaza could weaken the group's regional ties, particularly if travel is limited. A Gaza-based leadership might have fewer contacts with regional allies, he said.
"I think Hamas will be more in (Gaza) and less out," said Hroub, a political scientist at Northwestern University's Doha campus.
Hamas was founded in December 1987 in Gaza as a branch of the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood. In its founding charter, Hamas calls for setting up an Islamic state in historic Palestine, including what is now Israel.
Haniyeh's election came days after Hamas published a new political manifesto, rebranding itself as a Palestinian national movement and distancing itself from the Brotherhood, which has been outlawed by Egypt.
The new program omits the old charter's specific language about seeking Israel's destruction and raises the possibility of a Palestinian state in lands Israel occupied in 1967, but only as a step toward "liberating" all of historic Palestine.
Over the years, Hamas had a leadership-in-exile that raised funds or courted political support from countries like Iran and Syria, while the Hamas military wing, Izzedine al- Qassam, attacked Israeli targets from Gaza and the West Bank.
The power shift from the diaspora to Gaza began in 2012 when Hamas leaders-in-exile had to quit their longtime base in Syria as a result of the civil war that began a year earlier.
Since then, Mashaal has mostly lived in lavish hotel suites in oil-rich Qatar, but without the political and military freedom Hamas enjoyed in Damascus.

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First Published: May 08 2017 | 11:22 PM IST

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