Hamas Premier Not Told of Hostage Plan
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, was kept in the dark about Sunday’s tunnel attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen.
The armed wing of Hamas appears to have shunned Mr. Haniyeh in favor of the “exiles,” senior members of the movement obliged to live outside the Palestinian Arab territories.
The de facto leader of the “exiles” is Khaled Meshaal, who has come to represent the hawkish wing of the Hamas leadership from his base in Damascus. His hard-line attitude has made him into a hate figure for the Israeli government, which said yesterday that he remained a target for assassination even in his Syrian base. Israel tried and failed to kill him once before in 1997.
But divisions between those outside the territories and those within threatens to undermine any movement by Hamas toward accepting the right of Israel to exist. On Tuesday, negotiators loyal to Mr. Haniyeh signed up to a proposal implicitly recognizing Israel.
