Khaled Meshaal, left, the man tipped to be Hamas's next leader, with Ismail Haniyeh, the group's chief who was killed on Wednesday.

In the aftermath of the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, all eyes are on Khaled Meshaal, who “rose from the dead” after an assassination attempt that made him a hero among Hamas supporters.

A senior intelligence chief who was part of the team behind the operation in Jordan’s capital, Amman, in 1997, said: “Meshaal became a self-made prophet. He thought in his Islamic ideology that he was immortal, and it was from there he rose quickly to power.”

Following a deadly suicide bombing in Jerusalem that claimed 16 lives and injured 169 more, in broad daylight, a team of Mossad agents, acting on orders from Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, launched a brazen assassination attempt against Meshaal.

With a quick spray of deadly poison, the agents expected Meshaal to succumb within hours. But as his bodyguards swiftly recognised the attack, a heart-pounding chase ensued through the city’s crowded streets.

The audacious operation, meant to be swift and secretive, spiraled into chaos as the agents desperately tried to escape. The streets of Amman became a maze of pursuit, with the fate of the assassins and Meshaal hanging in the balance.

Hussein bin Talal, king of Jordan from 1953 to 1999, was furious at the brazen act on his soil and threatened to execute the captured Israeli agents and dissolve the peace agreement with Israel, escalating the stakes even further.

Israel, facing immense pressure, was forced to hand over the antidote, bringing Meshaal back from the brink of death. This miraculous recovery not only saved his life but also catapulted him into a new sphere of influence.

The former agent said: “Israel’s desperate act to save him turned Meshaal into a symbol of resilience and resistance, elevating his status to unprecedented levels.”

The man who ordered his killing was the man to save his life.

In a speech in Gaza in 2012, Meshaal called the incident his “second birth”.

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In return, the incident led to Israel releasing Sheikh Yassin, a former Hamas leader, who just seven years later, after his assassination by an Israeli helicopter gunship, would be replaced by Meshaal.

He ran Hamas in exile in Damascus in 2004 until January 2012 when he left the Syrian capital because of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria’s, fierce crackdown on Sunnis involved in an uprising against him, a move that would see him deemed an enemy of Iran and its major proxy, Hezbollah.

He has not lived in the Palestinian Territories since the age of 11, when he resided in the West Bank, his family fleeing to Kuwait during the 1967 war.

An Israeli intelligence source specialised in Hamas told The Telegraph: “He will at least be a temporary replacement if not long term. He’s powerful in the group of those outside Gaza.

“Iran and Hezbollah don’t like him because during the civil war in Syria he took the side of the rebels and the Iranians almost killed him for that so unlike Haniyeh, he’s not on good terms with Iran and definitely not with Hezbollah who would have preferred Saleh Arouri [who was recently assassinated in Beirut].”

Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza strip and the orchestrator of the October 7 massacre, who is believed to be on the run in the 500km of tunnels under Gaza, also despises Meshaal, his biggest rival. “Right now, Sinwar isn’t in a position to be someone who dictates anything,” the intelligence source explained. “He’s in a very bad situation on the run and cannot dictate like he could after Oct 7.”

In 2022, under Yair Lapid, a former Israeli prime minister, Israel attacked Islamic Jihad in Gaza, but Hamas did not join the conflict. It proved to be an opportunity for Meshaal.

“It came to the point that Meshaal was challenging his leadership,” the source said. “Meshaal issued a cartoon of Sinwar and Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank] as accomplices of Israel so it was the worst insult Sinwar could have been given.”

While Meshaal has earned the wrath of Iran and Hezbollah, a relationship which Haniyeh had personally repaired since 2017 as Hamas’s political leader, he is closely entwined in the top levels of gas-rich Qatar’s ruling elite which has long hosted the terror group.

Another senior intelligence source told The Telegraph: “Meshaal is a Qatari agent paid a huge amount of money from Qatar to fulfil their agenda, an asset of the Qatari people.”

Egypt, another key player in the hostage negotiations, also does not trust him. Staunchly opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood, Meshaal joined the group from the age of 15. “This is the ideology that both Hamas and Qatar stand for, an ideology which Egypt despises,” said the intelligence official, who spent years managing counter-Hamas operations.

They added: “While committed to Hamas’s ideological goals, Meshaal’s firm adherence to Hamas’s ideological principles is his main weakness, particularly when it limits his ability to make concessions in peace negotiations. His uncompromising stance has often led to stalled talks and continued conflict.

“His leadership has made him a polarising figure. While he is admired by supporters, he is equally reviled by opponents, which complicates his ability to gain broader international acceptance. The constant threat to his life and the need for stringent security measures can hinder his ability to operate freely and engage directly with broader audiences and stakeholders.”

The high likelihood of his assassination could also be the one reason he declines to take the baton from Haniyeh in spite of his hunger for power.

Speaking exclusively to The Telegraph, one of the hostage negotiators, also a former intelligence chief, said more than the change in leadership, the assassination could make for interesting developments.

“Meshaal is a hardliner, much more than Haniyeh was, but, on the other hand, he’s eating from the hand of the Qataris so the Qataris have a lot of potential influence,” he said. Meshaal has always rejected any kind of permanent peace with Israel.

He added: “But in the end, the person who has the final word is Sinwar. The leadership outside Gaza doesn’t have much influence because Sinwar has all the cards in his hands, the hostages, so he determines what’s going to happen. These guys outside are more mediators to go between Sinwar and the negotiators. Meshaal, like Haniyeh, will be limited in his capabilities.”

However, the assassination has sent a powerful message to Hamas. The source said: “It’s more likely after the assassination, another week or two once things have settled, that the assassination will enhance the possibility of a deal because Sinwar and the Gaza leadership realises time isn’t on their side like they anticipated before.

“They anticipated a rift between the US and Israelis and the Americans will push for a ceasefire and compliance with Hamas’s demands because of the elections. It didn’t happen, not in the sense Hamas had expected.”

While he admits Hamas succeeded in bringing the Palestinian issue to the world stage, with the developing crisis with Iran and Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, the attention is once again shifting away from Gaza, he said.

‘I’m really afraid’

For the families of the hostages, it is a tense time. Shay Dickman, a cousin of Carmel Gat, 40, told The Telegraph: “For the last 300 days it’s been a mixture of the feeling of fear and hope. It changes with the chances for a deal every time.

“Just last week there was news that we are on the verge of having a deal and the hopes were so up that I was feeling she was right next to us. Now, I’m more afraid. I know that what happened [the assassination] will affect things, but I don’t know in which direction. I’m really afraid.”

As of Friday, Mr Netanyahu’s office said they were still waiting for a response from Hamas after this week’s Rome talks.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen’s son Sagui, 35, is being held in Gaza. What comes next after the assassination remains uncertain for all those waiting for loved ones. “I hope the whole process will not collapse, whoever committed it,” he told The Telegraph.

“Whoever committed this assassination, the timing seems to put the lives of the hostages in grave danger and makes the negotiations feel even more distant than they were before.”

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