The Palestinian Hamas movement is expected to unveil a new version of its founding charter Monday.
The group, which controls Gaza, is due to reveal the new document in the Qatari capital Doha, where its leader Khaled Meshaal lives in exile.
The fundamentalist Islamic organization has long been under pressure to update its 1988 founding document, which calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and advocates the use of violence to achieve its goal of restoring a Palestinian state.
Critics have used the charter to argue that Hamas is anti-Semitic and violent at its core. It began the process of creating a new document around a decade ago.
It is not yet clear what the revamped charter might look like. Analysts will look for any softening of its language on Israel, its position on borders for a future Palestinian state, and whether it frames its struggle as more political than religious.
Meshaal is expected to step down as leader of Hamas after serving the maximum two terms. The new leadership will be announced in the coming days, the French news agency AFP reported, quoting a Hamas official.
The new document’s publication comes ahead of the Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday.
What to look out for
Borders: There will be keen interest in whether Hamas will make official its stance on which borders it recognizes in any possible peace agreement. In its old charter, Hamas called for a return to “historic Palestine” — which is almost all of modern-day Israel — as marked by borders from before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. But Hamas has said over the past decade that it is open to recognizing the later 1967 borders, which would include Gaza, the West Bank and at least part of Jerusalem as part of a Palestinian state. But Hamas has fallen short of saying that it would officially recognize Israel as a state.
International support: Hamas has sought to increase international pressure on Israel, particularly after several eruptions of Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have ended with a significant death toll on the Palestinian side. In the 2014 Gaza conflict, for example, more than 2,200 Palestinians were killed, while 73 Israelis were killed, UN data show. Hamas may include measures in its charter to reel in more international support.
Militancy: There will also be interest in whether Hamas will soften its language on the use of violence in the pursuit of its objectives. But the group’s decision to appoint Yehya al-Sinwar — a hardline founder of Hamas’ military wing in the 1980s — as Hamas’s Gaza leader is a sign that the group is not seeking a less militaristic approach.
Political vs. religious: The charter may also seek to frame the conflict as political, rather than religious, as many Palestinians abroad have called for.
Trump’s murky stance
Anxiety may be growing among Palestinians after President Trump met with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in February and said simply he would “like the one that both parties like,” referring to a possible peace deal.
Trump also said before he took office that he would seek to move the US embassy in Israel’s Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a disputed city that both the Israelis and Palestinians claim. Trump has said he hopes to restart the peace process, which stalled in 2014.
Hamas has traditionally been shut out of the peace process — it is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Britain and the European Union; the group believes in the destruction of the Israeli state; and its current charter advocates violence to protect Palestinian territory.
Hamas is also releasing its new document as tensions with the PA are at a high over a power shortage. The PA is controlled by the rival Fatah faction, which evolved from the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
The only power plant in Hamas-controlled Gaza ran out of fuel, leaving 2 million residents in one enclave with only four hours of electricity a day. Hamas and the PA, which controls the West Bank, blame each other for the power crisis, and Hamas may fear an uprising should the problem persist.
Hamas and the PA have clashed for years over their political ideologies — Hamas flatly rejects the idea of a two-state solution, while the PA is willing to make concessions and openly works with international powers in the peace process.