Tensions within Hamas' leadership that caused a rift between the two strongest and influential people in the movement today – Ismail Haniyeh, the political bureau chief, and Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip – have been brewing for a long time now. Disagreements on the organization's policy and conduct regarding the "March of Return" campaign of recent weeks triggered an inevitable explosion between the two leaders who, according to Hamas officials, have not exchanged a word in months. As a result, the Hamas leadership is currently split between two camps.
Sinwar is displeased with the fact that Haniyeh has chosen to remain in Gaza. This decision breaks with years of tradition, as his predecessor, former political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal, managed the movement's affairs from Syria before moving operations to Qatar. Sinwar has complained to his associates that Haniyeh was intervening in internal affairs, namely organizational matters concerning the movement's policy and administration in Gaza and in the West Bank, and circumventing Sinwar by going over his head.
Sinwar has also largely stayed away from public events in Gaza in recent months, in protest of Haniyeh's over-involvement in matters that directly fall under Sinwar's authority. His participation in the first border demonstration in late March was his first appearance after weeks of refraining from showing up at public events attended by Haniyeh.
Moreover, Sinwar's associates say that while he has worked tirelessly, in conjunction with other Hamas figures, to rehabilitate the group's relations with Egypt, Haniyeh undermined Sinwar's efforts by offending the Egyptians' honor when he refused an invitation to come to Cairo to discuss an Egyptian proposal for Hamas.
Sinwar was enraged to discover Haniyeh rejected the Egyptians' invitation to head a Hamas delegation in Cairo to discuss the offer. The Egyptian proposal sought to convince Hamas to end the weekly border marches, which inevitably turned violent each week.
Sinwar and his associates were inclined to accept the Egyptian offer and halt the marches because it would have meant a significant improvement in the suffering of Gaza's civilian population as well as humanitarian relief. According to Sinwar's people, Haniyeh opted to heed Tehran's recommendation and declined the Egyptian offer, continuing the weekend provocations at the Gaza-Israel border.
It is no secret that the campaign of protests at the border has been a disappointment for Hamas, as it failed to meet the group's initial expectations. The number of participants has diminished from week to week, and Sinwar and his associates, including many high-ranking officials in the group's military wing, feel that the campaign has exhausted itself.
They say that if Hamas continues to conduct the campaign as it is currently being handled, it will erase any achievement it has managed to reach, having brought the Palestinian problem and the blockade of Gaza to the forefront of global discourse.
