Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal will make an historic visit to the Gaza Strip Friday, a spokesman for the Islamist movement said Thursday, dpa reported.
He will be participating in Hamas' 25th anniversary celebrations, scheduled for this weekend, Sami Abu Zuhri said.
The visit will be Mashaal's first-ever to the Gaza Strip, which has been controlled by Hamas since June 2007.
Mashaal, who was born in 1996 in Silwad, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, is currently based in Qatar. He was previously based in Damascus but moved earlier this year because of the Syrian civil war.
He has led Hamas since 1996, and in September 1997 he survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Amman, Jordan.