Video: Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal celebrates Gaza visit Emboldened from the eight day conflict between Gaza and Israel which ended in a ceasefire negotiated by the exiled Hamas exiled leader under Egypt's auspices, Khaled Meshaal drove through Rafah crossing into Gaza and then got out and kissed the ground before embracing Gaza's Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya. "I hope God will make me a martyr on the land of Palestine in Gaza," Mr Meshaal said. The Islamist group's leader, who has not visited the Palestinian Territories since leaving the West Bank at age 11, will stay for a little more than 48 hours in the Gaza Strip, which his Islamist group has ruled since a 2007 civil war against its secular rival Fatah that runs the nearby West Bank.