Sheik Ahmed Yassin
The founder and leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin was a Palestinian politician and imam who founded Hamas in 1987. He was the spiritual leader of the militant Islamist and Palestinian nationalist organization. Sheikh Ahmed was blind and also a paraplegic as a result of a sports accident in his youth so he used a wheelchair for most of his life. He spent years in Israeli prisons and oversaw the establishment of Hamas' military wing. The military wing carried out its first suicide attack in 1993.
In the 1970s, Yassin obtained a license from the Israeli military administration to establish an Islamic association, and his followers ran schools, clinics, and religious centers. At that time, Israel feared armed nationalists, and saw religious Muslims as a “counterweight.” them, and supported them.
Hamas is a militant Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which was founded to replace secular rulers with an Islamic society. In late 1987, activist members of the Muslim Brotherhood opted to play a more direct role in the popular uprising, known as the Intifada, than the Muslim Brotherhood leadership would allow. As a result, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, then head of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip, formed Hamas. This a terrorist organization espouses an extremist Islamic fundamentalist ideology. Hamas is dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian State that encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said that the movement began its activity from scratch, then grew through lessons, education and lectures, until it reached a stage where it found itself ready for military action, so it began purchasing weapons after 1982.
Yassin was the leader and mentor of Hamas in the territories, and the authorizing and initiating authority for all Hamas terrorist attacks emanating from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although he was not a religious authority, many named him "Sheikh Yassin," for his status as leader of Hamas. The perception that Yassin was the "political" leader and left the management of terrorist activities to others is incorrect. In fact, there was then no differentiation between the "political" and "military" wings of Hamas. Yassin, himself, often authorized and encouraged attacks and strongly preached against Israel.
The Hamas leader narrowly escaped an Israeli military attempt to kill him in September 2003. In January 2004 Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said Israel would hunt down and kill Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in retaliation for a deadly attack that killed four Israeli border guards.
Yassin, who established Hamas in 1987 and remained its most central authority, seemed to defy Israeli threats on 21 March 2004 in what may have been his last television interview, broadcast by Arab television station Al-Arabiyah. "The Israeli threat to eliminate Hamas leaders and leaders from other factions is not a new threat but an old one used repeatedly. Every time there is a martyrdom operation [suicide attack] or an operation which hurts the enemy, Israel begins to threaten [that it will respond]," Yassin said.
The next day he was dead, killed on 22 March 2004 in the northern Gaza Strip in an Israeli military operation that drew widespread international condemnation. Sheikh Yassin was killed by missiles fired by Israeli helicopters as he left a mosque in Gaza City. Israel confirmed it carried out the deadly operation, saying Sheikh Yassin was personally responsible for ordering suicide attacks against Israelis.
Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin was born in the village of Al Jaurah, a suburb of Al-Mijdal, south of the Gaza Strip (now not far from Ashkelon in Israel ). His date of birth is not known for certain: according to his Palestinian passport, he was born on January 1, 1929, but he has stated that he was actually born in 1938. Palestinian sources register his year of birth as 1937. When he was a child , he and his family were forced to become refugees as a result of the war with Zionist Israel in 1948 .
Ahmed saw the light in 1938 AD in a historic village called “Al-Joura” in the city of Ashkelon, a city that represents a memorial to the leaders and great fighters of the Crusades. With the outbreak of the greatest catastrophe of this century in 1948 AD, when he was only 10 years old, his family, crowded with individuals and poor, immigrated to the Gaza Strip, and he tasted the taste of displacement, displacement, and being away from his home and homeland since his childhood. Poverty and migration led him to abandon his studies in the years 1949 AD and 1950 AD so that he could contribute to improving his family’s livelihood, but he soon continued his studies and completed the intermediate stage at the Imam Al-Shafi’i School.
While he was 14 years old, Ahmed suffered an accident while exercising on the coast of Gaza City, which caused real damage to his neck and back vertebrae. The damage led to half of his body being paralyzed and he has been confined to a wheelchair ever since.
Despite his special health condition, he did not abandon his studies and made efforts and has been busy since 1958 AD teaching the Arabic language and religious knowledge in UNRWA schools. Then Ahmed Al-Muallem was influenced by the special atmosphere that prevailed in the Gaza Strip at that time in the fifth and sixth decades of the last century, and he approached the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood movement and was busy in the mosques, performing prayers and giving sermons. In 1964 AD, he was accepted into the English language major at Ain Al-Shams University in Cairo, so he left for Egypt to study and stayed there for a few years. In 1965 AD, he was arrested in the Gaza Strip by Egypt on charges of joining the Muslim Brotherhood and was prevented from participating in the Cairo University exams. Despite this, he was released after less than a month. Sheikh Yassin writes about his period of detention: “It deepened in me my hatred of injustice, and it confirmed (the period of detention) that the legitimacy of any authority is based on justice and its belief in people’s right to live freely.”
The speech delivered by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who is now a 30-year-old young man, from the Abbasid pulpit in the Gaza Strip, after the defeat suffered by the Arab countries in 1967 AD, turned the sheikh into a prominent figure in the Gaza Strip. The Sheikh launched his activities and events from the mosque and focused on helping the families of martyrs and prisoners. As his activities expanded, in the same year he was elected leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip. Among the social steps he took was the establishment of the “Islamic Complex Association” in 1973 AD with the aim of providing social, cultural and charitable services. He also founded the Islamic Society in the Gaza Strip in 1978 AD with the participation of his comrades and took over its management. The mosque, the Islamic Academy Society, and the university turned into places that spread over the years his vision and thought, which are summarized in the phrase “jihad versus the enemy,” and they were places that covered up some of the military actions of his team and the Palestinian youth.
With the expansion of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s activities, which remained far from the limelight in the Gaza Strip , in 1987 AD, along with colleagues Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Khaled Meshal and all his companions from the Muslim Brotherhood, he founded a movement that he called the Islamic Resistance Movement , the movement that later changed the fate of the Gaza Strip and Palestine and became known as the “ Hamas Movement .”
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin established a resistance movement in the heart of Palestine and drew lessons from the defeat of the Arab armies. He believed the following: “The Arab armies that came to fight Israel took the weapons from our hands under the pretext that there should be no force other than the strength of the armies, so our fate was linked to them, and when they were defeated, we were defeated and the Zionist gangs began committing massacres and massacres to terrorize the innocent, and if our weapons were in our hands, it would have changed.” Happenings..."
The steps taken by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the organization that he founded with Palestine in his heart, despite the strong presence of the Zionists at the security and military levels, led to Tel Aviv becoming fed up. Yassin was arrested twice by Israel. While under arrest by the ISA in 1984, Yassin stated during questioning that he had founded an organization of religious activists with the goal of fighting non-religious factions in the territories, and carrying out "jihad" operations against Israel. This organization used funds from Islamic activists in Jordan in order to acquire large quantities of weapons. Yassin was imprisoned and subsequently released within the framework of a prisoner release agreement in May 1985.
Then he was arrested in 1988 and threatened with exile to Lebanon. The threat was ineffective. In 1989, Yassin ordered Hamas to kidnap Israeli soldiers inside Israel, to murder them and bury their bodies in a manner which would allow Hamas to negotiate the exchange of bodies for Hamas prisoners, who would be released from jails in Israel. Yassin was arrested after the abduction and murder of IDF soldier Ilan Sa'adon, and the discovery of the body of IDF soldier Avi Sasportas, who was also abducted and murdered. In 1989, Saleh Shade, appointed by Yassin, admitted during questioning by the ISA to the establishment of a terrorist element within Hamas.
In May 1989, Yassin was arrested along with dozens of other members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Yassin confirmed in interrogation, that he himself ordered the establishment of a military element within the organization, and approved the drafting of terrorists as well as the carrying out of terrorist attacks. In October 1991, he was tried and received two life sentences froman Israeli court for these Hamas terrorist activities.
In October 1997, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was exchanged and freed in a historic and strange event. In that year, two Israelis entered the Jordanian capital, Amman, in order to assassinate and poison Khalid Misha’al, the head of Hamas’ office in that country at the time. Their operations failed, and with the Kingdom of Jordan arresting them, Tel Aviv was forced to send the antidote to the poison and free Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in exchange for Jordan's release of its terrorist elements. Of course, after his liberation and return to the Gaza Strip, he spent several years in home prison under the control of the security forces of the Palestinian National Authority, which had then surrendered its affairs to the Oslo Accords.
The Sheikh traveled in April 1998 AD and during this visit he met with Imam Khamenei. During this meeting, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution described Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his companions as the true representatives of the Palestinian people and the mujahideen on the front lines of the front lines of confrontation of Islam against disbelief and truth against falsehood. His Eminence said: “The Palestinian people are Muslims and the true representatives of the Palestinian people are only those who speak in the name of Islam and want the glory of Palestine.” Therefore, those who sought to humiliate Palestine have no right to speak in the name of great Palestine.”
But Ahmed did not consider that Palestine was limited to himself and his jihad, and he left an immortal sentence on Palestine Street located in Tehran: “Palestine is not the place where a government or a private group can make a decision about its fate, or bargain over it with the usurpers of Jerusalem. Palestine belongs to all... Muslims, while we are on this path, will either be martyred or we will liberate Al-Quds Al-Sharif in the end."
Yassin again became involved in Hamas terrorist operations. His involvement included directing terrorist attacks in the field and providing financial assistance to terrorists. On October 29, 1998, Yassin was placed under house arrest by the Palestinian Authority (PA) following an unsuccessful Hamas suicide attack to blow up a bus full of school children in Kfar Darom, which resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier. Yassin was released from house arrest two months later, in December 1998.
Yassin tried many times to present himself simply as a political leader not involved terrorist activities. Many of Yassin's interviews in the media serve as evidence that the exact opposite is true, and that he supported and directed terror.
After the suicide bombing on January 14, 2004, at the Erez crossing in which Reem Raiyshi detonated herself, interviews of Yassin were aired on many media, and displayed his satisfaction with the execution of the attack. Yassin especially justified the use of a woman in order to carry out the attack and said, "Hamas views women as the reserve force... when the military wing of the Hamas saw it necessary to use a woman to carry out an attack, it did so."
Yassin was the senior authority in the decision making process for carrying out terrorist attacks, and was the main address in all matters concerning the determining the policy for terrorism. He was viewed as a highly admired and charismatic persona serving as a main factor in attacks against Israel.
On September 6, 2003, in the midst of the roaring Al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel attempted to assassinate Sheikh Ahmed Yassin by dropping a quarter-ton bomb on his place of residence, but the Sheikh of the Resistance survived this assassination and was wounded.
Then, in the end, on 22 March 2004, the Sheikh of the Resistance achieved his wish of martyrdom while he was leaving in his wheelchair after the dawn prayer from the Al-Jami’ Al-Islam Mosque in the Sabr neighborhood located in Gaza. He was assassinated by 3 missiles from an Apache helicopter belonging to the Zionists, killing 7 others with him.
A solemn, historic funeral was held for the body of Sheikh Yassin, who was cut into pieces. It was a historic funeral in the Gaza Strip. The Zionists believed that with the assassination of the Sheikh, they would end the state of resistance in Palestine, but the movement founded by Sheikh Yassin did not stop with his departure. Rather, his students took revenge after only one year by liberating the Gaza Strip. The book of memoirs of the life of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was engraved on the magnificent golden dome of Al-Aqsa Mosque , until that day comes when the price for his sacrifices and the martyrs of his path will be paid. The martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin can be summarized in one word: “belief in resistance.” He used to say: “The Israeli enemy does not leave the Palestinian people with any options other than one option, which is resistance, jihad, and martyrdom.”
Imam Khamenei’s statement after His Eminence received the news of the assassination of the Sheikh of the Resistance stated the following: “There is no doubt that martyrdom was the permanent wish of this Mujahid and pious Sheikh, and that killing in the name of God is sweet and delicious to His loyal servants... What they took from Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the Palestinian people with this crime was a thin and sick body. They will not be able to rob the Palestinian people of the ideas and approach they presented and the path they legislated. The Sheikh’s soul is alive."
Israel Radio radio reported Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, one of his sons, and some of his bodyguards and associates, were killed in an IAF helicopter missile hit. The radio reported that "butcher of Sabra and Shatila", PM Ariel Sharon personally supervised the assassination of the Sheikh.
Israel Radio cited a gamut of responses to the action in the political arena, ranging from satisfaction on the Right to reservations, even condemnations on the Left. The station quoted Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as saying that Yassin had been "the Palestinian bin Laden." Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi said on Israel Radio that Yassin was more moderate than the Hamas leaders destined to succeed him. Some senior Labor Party members, such as Ephraim Sneh, expressed their satisfaction over the deed. Like many commentators, some Shinui ministers expressed their concern that Yassin's assassination will start a new wave of terrorism. Israel Radio and IDF Radio reported that the U.S. State Department is urging all sides to exercise restraint.
Israel’s deputy defense minister Zeev Boim told public radio that “Sheikh Yassin deserved to die for all the terrorist attacks committed by Hamas.” Boim made the remark in the first reaction by the Israeli government to the killing of Yassin, who founded Hamas in 1987 and was held in Israeli prisons for several years before being released in 1994. Following the assassination of the Hamas chief, Israel closed the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Liberal op-ed writer Ofer Shelach commented on Ynet, a website affiliated to mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (March 22): "Every Israeli, and presumably every Palestinian, knew that Israel would eventually assassinate Sheikh Yassin, and not only because once it tried to half-heartedly. The accursed cycle of terror and revenge, action and retaliation, had to play itself out. And since Yasser Arafat has already been expelled orally countless times, but Israel did not dare to carry it out, only the Hamas leader remained. After so many threats, after so many provocations, it was bound to happen. It was bound to happen because both sides to this conflict have long since ceased to calculate cause and effect, benefit and damage....
"Yassin indeed 'oversaw' terror, as the current IDF newspeak describes it. He gave instructions to try to increase or reduce activity at certain times. But the great contractors of terror did not receive missions and targets from him, and do not need him to act.... None of their capability to dispatch murderers has been impaired. This is known by every Israeli, including the IDF commanders and the political echelon that authorized this operation. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long since ceased to be about leadership and logic, control and decisions, cause and effect.
"This conflict is currently a tribal war, ruled by feelings of vengeance and inability to tolerate killing without reacting. Ahmed Yassin died because he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. In his death, he bequeathed us nothing but more death."
Thousands took to the streets after news of Yassin’s assassination spread, shouting for revenge, while hundreds of militants all over the Gaza Strip fired weapons into the air. Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigade, vowed in a statement to avenge the killing of its spiritual leader with immediate reprisals. “We, the Ezzedin al-Qassam leaders, have decided to make immediate reprisals, like an earthquake that will hit everywhere to destroy the Zionist presence,” said the statement, adding that the response would be “unexpected.”
“Words cannot describe the anger and hate inside our hearts,” said Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh, a close associate of Yassin. The Hamas leaders said, “Sharon has opened the gates of hell. And nothing will stop us from cutting off his head.”
The Amir and Crown Prince of Kuwait issued condolences to the family of HAMAS founder Shaykh Ahmed Yassin, whom the Amir described as "a symbol of the Palestinian legitimate struggle against tyranny." Prime Minister Shaykh Sabah al-Ahmed expressed sorrow at the news of the Israeli assassination of Yassin, saying that "violence begets violence" and calling on the international community to react. The National Assembly also condemned the killing of the "martyr." Speaker Jassem al-Khorafi said "Israeli terrorism does not at all help a peaceful settlement. The struggle of the Palestinian people will continue."
Chairman of the parliamentary foreign relations committee Mohammed Jassem al-Saqer branded Israel "a terrorist state" and said "the United States must make a declaration on this crime." The Islamic Constitutional Movement took out a quarter-page ad in Al-Ra'i Al-Aam praising Yassin as a hero and martyr, denouncing "the terrorist Sharon and the Zionist entity." The head of the Kuwait University Student Union was typical of Kuwaiti societies and political figures in expressing outrage at the assassination of an old man in a wheelchair.
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