Who was Ismail Haniyeh?
The former Prime Minister of Palestine Ismail Haniyeh was the political head of Hamas and the chairman of the political bureau of Hamas. In 2017, he was appointed as the political head of Hamas in place of Khalid Mashaal. He has been residing in Qatar since 2023.
Ismail was a young founding member of Hamas when it was founded in 1988. In 1997, he became the personal secretary of Hamas’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. He was held in prison for months, after being re-arrested in 1989. Ismail was deported to Lebanon in 1992 and returned to Gaza the following year after the Oslo Accords.
In 2006, after the majority of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, Ismail Haniyeh was appointed Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. Due to the differences between Hamas and Fatah, the government did not last long, but the rule of Hamas in Gaza remained and Ismail Haniyeh was its head.
