Who is Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader who died in his sleep during the Tehran attack

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who died today in Iran, rose to prominence in 2006 when he was appointed prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) following the movement’s surprise victory in legislative elections.

He has long advocated reconciliation between the armed struggle and the political struggle within the group and maintained good relations with the leaders of various Palestinian movements.

Until now, the 62-year-old leader of the Islamist movement lived in voluntary exile between Qatar and Turkey.

Born to refugee parents in Ashkelon (Asqalan in Arabic), a few kilometers north of Gaza, he began his militant activities in the Muslim Brotherhood student branch at the Islamic University of Gaza, where Hamas emerged, before becoming a member of the Islamic University’s student association in 1983 and 1984.

Three years later, he joined Hamas at its founding, during the outbreak of the first intifada, an uprising that lasted until 1993. During this period, Ismail Haniyeh was arrested several times by Israel and exiled to southern Lebanon for six months.

In 2006, he rose to international prominence when he became prime minister of the PNP following his movement’s surprise victory in the legislative elections.

As head of the unity government, he committed to working towards the creation of a Palestinian state “in the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital,” contrary to the official line of Hamas, which at the time did not recognize those borders.

But it was under his leadership that a near-civil war broke out between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Denied a legislative victory, the Islamist movement took power in the Gaza Strip through deadly clashes that have left the two rivals bitter to this day.

But coexistence with Fatah, the party of President Mahmoud Abbas, was short-lived. Hamas forcibly expelled him from Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the territory.

In 2017, Ismail Haniyeh was elected head of Hamas’ political office, replacing Khaled Mehaal, who was in exile in Qatar.

In images released by Hamas media shortly after the start of the bloody assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, Haniyeh was seen happily talking with other Hamas leaders in his office in Doha, watching a television report in Arabic showing the movement’s commandos capturing Israeli army jeeps.

From Doha, he participated in negotiations aimed at achieving a ceasefire and the release of hostages.

Haniyeh was also under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for him and two other Hamas leaders, Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Similar orders were issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

His role in Hamas leadership has also cost him his closest family members. In April, an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip killed three of Haniyeh’s children, who accused Israel of acting “in a spirit of revenge and murder.”

Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren and his sister were also killed in another attack last month.

Although more than nine months of war have left the Gaza Strip in ruins, Haniyeh has repeatedly insisted that the group will only release the hostages if the fighting finally stops.