After a closely contested race, al-Hayya defeated Khaled Meshaal by one vote, highlighting Hamas's internal competition and resilience despite Israel's war.
"Simply seeing a child sitting again in a classroom represents an important step in recovering from trauma," Raafat Lubad, a psychologist in Gaza, told TNA.
The elderly Palestinian had travelled to Egypt for medical treatment, spending months away from the family she had left behind in devastated territory.
"Israel is reducing the areas where Palestinians can live through continuous bombing and evacuation orders, gradually concentrating civilians into zones..."
The Shabana family has been completely wiped from Gaza's civil registry, one of thousands of Palestinian families to have suffered the same fate by Israel.
"Every morning begins the same way. Yahya wakes with a fever, crying as he struggles to resist scratching the blisters covering his face, chest and limbs."