Over the weekend reports in the Arabic media suggested that Khaled Meshal’s daughter and husband had been arrested in Syria on corruption charges. In addition, two workers accused of being spies for the Mossad were also allegedly arrested.
Unsurprisingly, Hamas denied the report saying it was a fabricated story that was a malicious attempt to divide Hamas.
On Monday, Elaph, which seems to be the original source for the story said that it had confirmed that Meshal’s daughter and husband had been arrested, and subsequently released on bail.
As ElderofZiyon notes in his report of the Elaph piece:
The harassment is allegedly to show Syria’s displeasure at Hamas not supporting the Assad regime more strongly. Meshal has been trying to straddle the fence between supporting the Syrian revolution and not upsetting the regime.
Elaph’s sources claim that Meshal’s announcement that he will step down as Hamas’ political leader is related to this pressure from Syria. Elaph says that Syria prefers that he be replaced with his current deputy, Mousa Abu Marzouk.
Despite the confirmation, Hamas has accused Fatah of waging a campaign of incitement and dissemination of false news against the group and its leadership. They are specifically targeting their complaint against the Fatah associated Palestine Press, which ran the story shortly after it appeared on Elaph.
Hamas has called on Fatah to clarify the situation or else they will assume that Mahmoud Abbas has given a green light for the campaign.
Hamas’s threats may have gotten through to Palestine Press as the page with the original story has been removed aside from the headline.
Well, maybe not as Palestine Press is running its own report based on the new Elaph story.
