Ismail Haniyeh: Hamas will survive leader’s death as it has many times before


The Palestinian movement has seen numerous top leaders assassinated, yet it continued to grow in strength and popularity

Palestinian Hamas movement leader Ismail Haniyeh addressing a crowd in Tehran on 6 January, 2020 (SalamPix/Abaca Press via Reuters)

Azzam Tamimi writes in MiddleEastEye 31 July 2024

The assassination of Hamas top leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday will most likely be the boost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been desperately looking for in this 10-month unprecedented genocidal war against the Palestinians.

Or this is how it might seem.

For Hamas affiliates, and many Palestinians would agree with them, martyrdom is not a loss. In the Islamic doctrine, martyrdom is one of two successful outcomes in the struggle for truth and justice; the other is victory.

When the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, was born out of the womb of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood organisation in December 1987, Haniyeh was a young cadre, who was about to turn 25.

Yet, like many of his Islamic comrades, he was born a leader. Since his birth on 23 December 1962 to a refugee family that fled its homeland in Palestine, close to the city of Ashkelon during the Nakba of 1948, he grew up and lived in Al-Shati refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip.

His primary and intermediate education was at Unrwa schools in Gaza. He obtained a second school certificate from Al-Azhar Institute and then joined the Islamic University in Gaza. It was during his time at the university, where he studied Arabic Literature, that he joined the Muslim Brotherhood.

His graduation from the university in the summer of 1987 was soon to be followed by the eruption of the Palestinian Intifada and the birth of Hamas. He was detained by the Israeli occupation forces for several brief periods in 1987 and 1988.

A year later, he was re-arrested and given a three-year prison sentence. Following his release, the Israelis detained him again in the winter of 1992 and deported him together with more than 400 senior Hamas leaders and activists to South Lebanon.

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