BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanese crooner-turned-fugitive militant Fadl Shaker surrendered himself to Lebanese authorities on Saturday after hiding in a Palestinian camp for over a decade, a Lebanese judicial official said.
Shaker, a popular singer born to a Palestinian mother and a Lebanese father, was accused of taking part in 2013 clashes in Sidon, south Lebanon, that opposed Salafist Sheikh Ahmad Al-Assir and his supporters with the Lebanese military which left 17 soldiers dead.
While Shaker was a supporter of Assir, he denied involvement in the clashes and has been hiding in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain Al-Hilweh, the biggest Palestinian camp in the country where Lebanese authorities had no jurisdiction.
Assir was sentenced to death in 2017, then to 20 years of hard labor in 2021.
In 2020, Lebanon’s military tribunal sentenced Shaker to 22 years in prison for providing financial and logistical support to the “terrorist” Assir-led group.
“Fadl Shaker surrendered himself to the Lebanese army at the entrance to the Ain Al-Hilweh camp as a prelude to concluding his legal case,” a judicial source told AFP on Saturday.
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps and leaves Palestinian factions to handle security.
A source close to Shaker told AFP the singer was “confident in his innocence and in the independence of the judiciary.”
Shaker in July released a song while in hiding, which topped charts in the Arab world.
His video clip, filmed in Ain Al-Hilweh, reached over 113 million views on YouTube.
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Lebanon crooner turned fugitive militant surrenders himself to army: judicial source
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Lebanon crooner turned fugitive militant surrenders himself to army: judicial source
- Fadl Shaker surrendered himself to the Lebanese army at the entrance to the Ain Al-Hilweh camp
Hamas official says group in final stage of choosing new chief
CAIRO: A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian movement was in the final phase of selecting a new leader, with two prominent figures competing for the position.
Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shoura Council, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.
Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.
The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.
“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He added that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil Al-Hayya.
A second Hamas source confirmed the development within the organization, which fought a devastating war with Israel following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassem Brigades.
After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.
Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.
Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shoura Council, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.
Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.
The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.
“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He added that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil Al-Hayya.
A second Hamas source confirmed the development within the organization, which fought a devastating war with Israel following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassem Brigades.
After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.
Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.
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