Ismail Haniya is dead. He killed in an attack in Tehranwhere he attended the inauguration of the new Iranian president.
He was the political leader of Hamas and for years, and since the extremist organization took power in the Gaza Strip, he has been involved in negotiations on the Palestinian issue with authorities from Qatar, Turkey, Iran, China – even the US.
Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza, was the one who gave the order for the horrific terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 in southern Israel. The Ismail Haniya was the one who approved – which gave the green light to proceed. It is even said that he did from the comfort of your office in Qatar.
He lived there during the longest period in which the people of Gaza lived in absolute terror, pain and misery, with thousands of children killed in airstrikes and others dying of starvation.
His rise through the Hamas ranks
He was born on January 29, 1962 in the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Growing up in a refugee camp, he experienced first-hand the hardships and challenges faced by Palestinians in their quest for statehood.
- He joined Hamas in the late 1980s, during the First Intifada.
- Israel imprisoned him for three years in 1989 when he suppressed the first Palestinian uprising.
- He was then exiled in 1992 to an area between Israel and Lebanon, along with several Hamas leaders.
- After a year in exile, he returned to Gaza. In 1997, he was appointed chief of staff to Hamas’s spiritual leader and founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed in an airstrike in 2004. This position strengthened his position.
- He was appointed prime minister of Palestine in 2006 by Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas won the most seats in national elections, but was ousted a year later after the group forcibly expelled Abbas’s Fatah party from the Gaza Strip.
- He called his dismissal “unconstitutional”, stressing that his government “will not abandon its national responsibilities towards the Palestinian people” and continued to govern in Gaza.
- He was elected head of the Hamas Politburo in 2017.
- In 2018, the US State Department designated him a “terrorist.”
- He was the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from 2006 to February 2017. He was succeeded by Yahya Sinwar.
His family and rich life in Qatar
In recent years, he lived in Qatar in luxury. It is estimated that he was a millionaire. He made no secret of his expensive tastes. His wealth was the result of the 20% tax levied on all goods entering through tunnels from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.
He was married and had 13 children. His three children and four grandchildren were killed last April in an Israeli attack on his residence in Gaza.
