Khalid Mash’al is the new Secretary-General of Hamas.
Mash’al was born in Silwad, near Ramallah, in 1956. He immigrated to Kuwait in 1967, where he lived until the Gulf War in 1990.
Mash’al was head of the Palestinian-Islamic cell at the University of Kuwait, where he got his Bachelor’s degree in physics.
After the Gulf War, Mash’al again immigrated, this time to Jordan. He is considered one of the founding fathers of Hamas, and was an original member of its political bureau.
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Khalid Mash’al
In 1996 he was appointed head of the political bureau. On September 9, 1997, Mash’al was poisoned by two Mossad agents in Jordan. The two were caught and arrested, and their release was facilitated after Israel provided Mash’al with an antidote, and also released the head of Hamas, Ahmad Yasin, from an Israeli prison.
In the past few years, Mash’al has conducted his activities from Syria.
In a recent interview with foreign press, only a few days before Yasin’s death, Mash’al said Hamas will not enter any course of settlement. “The principle we adhere to, is that the resistance will not cease so long as the occupation persists,” said Mash’al. He added, “Others [i.e. the Palestinian Authority] think they can achieve the Palestinian people’s rights on the basis of mutual agreement or negotiations with the enemy…We, on the other hand, believe that the Palestinian rights will never be recovered without coercion and use of force. That is to say, that the Zionist enemy will be forced, under the pressures of the armed struggle to pay this price, the same way he withdrew from South Lebanon [in May 2000].”
Referring to the assassinations of top Hamas officials in recent years, Mash’al said, “This means Hamas is willing to pay the price firstly for the sake of God, and then for the sake of the homeland and the people…This is fuel for our fight…But it seems the American administration has not got used to the modus operandi of Hamas.”
‘Abd Al-‘Aziz A-Rantisi [3] is the new head of Hamas in Gaza.