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Mahmoud al-Zahar

Mahmoud al-Zahar is a top ranking HAMAS official. Al-Zahar is considered to be one of the more hawkish and socially conservative Hamas leaders. Zahar is married and has had four children, including two were killed by the IDF for their involvement in terror. In 1987, al-Zahar was one of the co-founders of Hamas, and he remained a senior official and spokesperson for the group. He was the first public spokesperson for Hamas when it was founded. Zahar might have been considered a rival of Rantisi and Mashal. Following the killing of Abdel Aziz Rantisi in 2004, the Hamas's Damascus-based leader, Khaled Mashaal, instructed the group to keep the name of its new Gaza leader secret. But it soon came out that Mahmoud Zahar, who had been Rantisi's second in command, was part of a "collective leadership" of Hamas's Gaza Strip stronghold. The other members of this leadership include Ismail Haniyeh. Zahar, though, was considered the most senior member of the leadership.

Mahmoud al-Zahar was born in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine in 1945, the son of a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother. He graduated from Cairo University in 1971, and he became the adviser to the Palestinian Health Minister . Al-Zahar worked as a hospital doctor in Gaza, and established a number of medical and Islamic charities and helped create both the Palestinian Medical Society and the Islamic University of Gaza.

Al-Zahar was briefly detained by Israeli authorities in 1988, and eventually exiled to Lebanon along with a large number of other Islamist activists in 1992. Following his return to Gaza he was the target of a failed Israeli assassination attempt. On 10 September 2003, an Israeli F-16 jet dropped a large bomb on the home of Mahmoud Zahar in Gaza City. Zahar survived the attack, but several others, including his eldest son Khalid and a personal bodyguard, were reported killed and wounding him, his daughter Rima, and 20 others. This action was undertaken in response to Hamas suicide bombing tactics during the Second Intifada, and 2,000 mourners at the funerals of the victims called on Hamas to avenge the deaths. In 2008, al-Zahar's other son Hussam was killed when the Israeli Air Force bombed a carload of Hamas fighters in northern Gaza.

Fighting between the ruling Hamas movement and its Fatah rivals escalated on 17 December 2006 as gunmen attacked the convoy of the Hamas Foreign Minister in Gaza City. It came a day after the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, announced he would end nine months of Hamas rule by calling early elections. Gunmen opened fire on Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Zahar's convoy as it drove near the Foreign Ministry. A spokesman for Zahar claimed the shooting was an attempt by Abbas' Fatah to assassinate the Hamas leader. Zahar, escaped unharmed. The attack on Zahar's convoy unleashed a ferocious gun-battle that raged through the main streets of Gaza City for more than an hour, the worst fighting between the sides since talks on forming a unity government broke down late last month. During the gun-battle, Hamas gunmen fired at Abbas' empty Gaza City residence. Abbas tried to end the power struggle by bringing Hamas into a more moderate coalition with his Fatah Party, but Hamas refused to pay the price he demanded, recognising Israel and renouncing violence.

Following the overwhemling Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections of 26 January 2006, he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). one of four HAMAS members in this Palestinian Authority (PA) institution. Zahar announced that Hamas would extend its year old truce with Israel, if Israel agreed to reciprocate. From 2006 to 2007, he served as Foreign Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. He held this position until March 2007 when Hamas wrested control of Gaza away from Fatah and split from the Palestinian Authority, and he returned to being a senior Hamas official.

Speaking to Qatar’s Al Jazeera network on 17 May 2018, Al-Zahar boasted in the interview of Hamas’s weaponry and military capabilities. “When you are in possession of weapons that were able to withstand the occupation [Israel] in the wars of 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2014… When you have weapons that are being wielded by men who were able to prevent the strongest army in the region from entering the Gaza Strip for 51 days, and were able to capture or kill soldiers of that army – is this really ‘peaceful resistance’?” he asked.

During a 19 October 2018 ceremony to honor Hamas police chiefs killed by Israeli fire during Operation Protective Edge, Zahar was quoted saying that "we don't want to establish an Islamic emirate in Gaza; we want an Islamic state in all Palestine". He also claimed that Hamas has defeated Israel during this war. "We will be able to go for a successful battle that we will win it at the end," he confidently said.

Mahmoud al-Zahar responded 12 April 2020 to recent reports on a possible prisoner exchange with Israel, saying “there are many new obstacles” before a deal can be reached. The terrorist group in control of the Gaza Strip is thought to be holding the remains of IDF soldiers Lt. Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul and at least four Israeli civilians. “We do not want to sell illusions,” al-Zahar said, quoted by Hebrew-language outlet Ynet. “Psychological pressure is exerted on families of Palestinian prisoners in order to pressure the Palestinian side to make concessions... [if] a swap deal is arranged -- we will declare it,” he noted. “We cannot give up on certain prisoners, especially those who spent many years [incarcerated], sick and old,” the Hamas leader added. “An obligation that prisoners who were released would not be apprehended again is required,” al-Zahar concluded, according to Ynet.

In a rare interview, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar told Britain’s Sky News on 24 May 2021 that Israel has no right to exist, and said the terror group’s strategy was to target Israeli population centers. In stilted English, al-Zahar explained that Hamas’s “victory” was a function of the group’s ability to fire rockets on densely populated Israeli civilian areas. Hamas and other Gaza terror groups launched over 4,300 rockets at Israel during the 11 days of fighting, at times forcing people living near Gaza into bomb shelters around the clock.

“The new element” in the latest round of fighting, al-Zahar said, “is the degree of the resistance movement, particularly in Gaza, to attack the Israeli targets at very important points, including most of the overcrowded area in the civilian society. So for how long the Israeli will accept that, I think this is the main issue.” When challenged on Hamas’s spending on military infrastructure, such as tunnels, instead of Gaza’s impoverished population, Al-Zahar said it does so to protect itself against “the Israeli aggression.”

During the interview, Al-Zahar was asked point-blank: “Does the State of Israel have the right to exist?” Al-Zahar said “No. Why? Why? You are coming from America and you take my house. You came from Britain and you took my brother’s house. This is a settlement. You are not a citizen. We are the owners of this. This is an Arabic area. This is well-known as an Islamic area, well-known”.

A Hamas source said 16 August 2022 that a letter purporting to show that Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of the founders of the terror group, had resigned from its political leadership in the Gaza Strip was misinformation circulated by rivals. The unnamed source spoke to the SHMS news agency after reports said al-Zahar had stepped down. The source said al-Zahar was still “performing his duties” at the political office and “has not submitted his regulation as some claim.”

Hamas Commander Mahmoud al-Zahar speaks of his group's ambitions for global supremacy. More than one minute of video footage featuring the senior Hamas official has gone viral on the internet, in which he asserts that Israel is merely the initial target and that they aim to extend their influence over the entire world. The video of this warning resurfaced on the internet at a time when Israel had declared a war against Hamas over the shocking 07 October 2023 attack in which hundreds of Israelis were killed.

"Israel is only the first target. The entire planet will be under our law," Zahar said in the video that was translated and published by MEMRI TV in December 2022. "The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under a system where there is no injustice, no oppression, and no killings and crimes like those being committed against the Palestinians and against the Arabs in all the Arab countries, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and other countries," he said. “We believe in what our Prophet Muhammad said: “Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake, and I have seen its eastern and western ends. The dominion of my nation would reach those ends that have been drawn near me," Zahar said in the video. This Hamas Commander says this is not about land, not just Palestine. "The entire planet will be under our law, there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors." Only then, if everyone adopts his law, will there be peace.

Al-Zahar said on a December 12, 2022 show on Al-Masirah TV (Houthis-Yemen) that Hamas has reached a “phase of deterrence” in which it can “defend” occupied Palestine. He also added that after the “Battle of the Promise of the Hereafter,” there will be no oppression, no Zionism, and no “treacherous Christianity.”