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| | News on Ismail Haniyeh | |
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Haniyeh was born in 1962 at Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza to a family originally from Asqalan (now Ashkelon, Israel). He received his primary education at UNRWA schools and his secondary education at the religious al-Azhar Institute in Gaza. He studied Arabic Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he became head of the student council and was active in the Islamic Bloc (the student wing of Hamas). He graduated in 1987, just as the first Intifada erupted in Gaza, and was detained by the Israeli authorities for participating in protests in 1987, and again in 1988, just as Hamas was emerging in Gaza as a leading resistance movement. The following year he was arrested again and sentenced to three years in prison before being deported with 415 other activists to Marj al-Zuhhur in South Lebanon. He was allowed to return to Gaza in December 1993 and was appointed dean of the Islamic University.
He was not in favor of the Hamas boycott of the 1996 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and initially put his name forward as an independent candidate, before backing down in January 1996. After Sheikh Yassin was released from prison in 1997, Haniyeh was appointed as his assistant. Because of his close relationship with Sheikh Yassin, Haniyeh gained increasing prominence within the movement and became Hamas' representative to the Palestinian Authority (PA). In September 2003 Haniyeh survived an assassination attempt while accompanying Sheikh Yassin when an Israeli aircraft bombed an apartment bloc in Gaza.
Six months later Sheikh Yassin was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack and when his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi was killed by Israel in April 2004, Hamas decided to keep the name of its new leader in Gaza a secret. However, Palestinian sources said that Haniyeh was appointed to the three-person “collective leadership” of Hamas along with Mahmoud al-Zahar and Said Siam. Although al-Zahar is thought to be the most senior of those leaders, Haniyeh was chosen to lead the campaign for Hamas for the January 2006 elections and became prime minister when Hamas won the majority of seats in the PLC.
On becoming prime minister, Haniyeh participated in negotiations on a coalition with the former ruling Fateh party and other factions. After the negotiations failed, Haniyeh was forced to name a cabinet primarily consisting of Hamas members and technocrats. When he outlined the Hamas administration’s program, Haniyeh urged the US and EU not to carry out their threats of cutting funding to the PA. He stressed that Palestinians were entitled to continue their struggle for independence, but at the same time claimed that he wanted to hold talks with international mediators about solving the conflict.
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