Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas political leader and ex-Palestinian PM
The Peninsula
Tehran: Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, was the head of Hamas s political wing and a former Palestinian prime minister wh...
Tehran: Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, was the head of Hamas's political wing and a former Palestinian prime minister whose membership of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) dated back to its inception.
Hamas announced his death on Wednesday, saying in a statement: "Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president."
Considered a pragmatist within Hamas and known for his calm demeanour, Haniyeh was born in 1963 in Gaza's Al-Shati refugee camp to a family that had to flee Ashkelon, several kilometres (miles) north of the territory, during the creation of Israel 15 years earlier.
In his youth he was a member of the student branch of the Muslim Brotherhood at the Islamic University of Gaza, and joined Hamas in 1987 when the group was founded after the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.
During that time Haniyeh was imprisoned by Israel several times and then expelled to south Lebanon for six months.