31-July-2024″ Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in Iran’s capital Tehran.
Haniyeh, 62, had attended the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday shortly before he was assassinated.
Haniyeh’s early years were shaped by Israeli occupation
Born in 1962 in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza, Haniyeh’s parents had fled from Asqalan – a city now known as Ashkelon – after the state of Israel was created in 1948. Haniyeh pursued his secondary education at the al-Azhar Institute in Gaza and later earned a degree in Arabic literature from the Islamic University in Gaza
While at university in 1983, Haniyeh joined the Islamic student bloc, a precursor to Hamas.
He was arrested by the Israeli military and served several sentences in Israeli jails in the 1980s.
Israel imprisoned Haniyeh for 18 days at the age of 25, when he took part in protests against the occupation. A year later, in 1988, he was jailed again for six months. He spent another three years in prison in 1989
The year he graduated, 1987, marked the start of the first Palestinian mass uprising against Israeli occupation, known as the first Intifada, and the founding of Hamas
From prison cells to leadership
Following his release, Israel deported Haniyeh to southern Lebanon along with hundreds of other Palestinian leaders and activists, where he spent a year. During that time, the group received unprecedented media coverage, establishing a global reputation.
After the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Haniyeh returned to Gaza in 1993, at the age of 31, and was appointed dean of the Islamic University
Haniyeh climbed the ranks within the movement as a close aide and assistant of Hamas’s cofounder, the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
Failed 2003 Israeli assassination attempt
In 2001, as the second Intifada erupted, Haniyeh consolidated his position as one of Hamas’s political leaders, along with Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, who was among the co-founders of Hamas.
In 2003, Haniyeh and Yassin escaped an assassination attempt when Israeli jets bombed an apartment block in downtown Gaza where the two men were meeting. Only six months later, Yassin, who was a quadriplegic, was targeted and killed by Israeli helicopters as he left a mosque after the early morning prayer.