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Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi

abdel aziz al-rantisi

Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi

Hamas Founder and Leader in the Gaza Strip

(1947 - 2004)

Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi was born in Yabna village (between Ashkelon and Jaffa) on 23 October 1947. After the 1948 war, his family moved to the Gaza Strip and settled in the Khan Yunis refugee camp. Rantisi enrolled in an UNRWA school when he was six years-old, completing his secondary school education in 1965. He was then admitted to the faculty of medicine at Alexandria University in Egypt, from which he graduated in 1972. While studying in Egypt he became extremely interested in the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic fundamentalist movement outlawed in the country.

After returning to Gaza for two years, Rantisi moved back to Alexandria to obtain a master's degree in paediatrics. In 1976, he returned to Gaza and worked as a resident physician at Nasser Hospital, the main medical centre in Khan Yunis.  He occupied several posts in public work, serving as a member of the administrative boards of the Islamic Complex, the Arab Medical Society in Gaza, and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.  He worked as a lecturer in science at the Islamic University in Gaza from its opening in 1978.

Rantisi rose to prominence with Hamas during the first Palestinian intifada of the late 1980's and early 1990's. After founding Hamas in 1987 with a number of Muslim activists in Gaza, he was arrested on 4 March 1988 by Israel and was detained for 30 months on charge of participating in anti-Israel activities. He was released on 4 September 1990. On 14 December 1990 he was held again in administrative detention for one year.

On 17 December 1992 he was deported to Lebanon along with 416 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, where he became the spokesman of the deportees in the Marj Al Zuhour camp. Israel arrested him upon his return in 1993, and he remained under administrative arrest until mid-1997.

Rantissi was detained many times by the Palestinian Authority for his criticism of the PA and Yasser Arafat, but in most cases, was released after a short period.

After the return of Sheikh Yassin to the Gaza Strip in October 1997, Yassin, together with the senior operatives including Rantissi, reorganized the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip to restore its activity. In mid-1999, following his release from a PA prison, Rantissi returned to his position as "right hand" to Yassin. During talks among the Hamas leadership in Gaza and abroad and in its contact with the PA regarding ceasing terror activity, Rantissi, together with Ibrahim Macadma and with the support of the external leadership, was one of the main opponents to any cease-fire and cessation of terrorist attacks inside Israel.

Abd al-Aziz Rantissi replaced Salah Shehadeh and Ibriahim Macadma, after they were assassinated by Israel, as the head (along with "spiritual" leader Yassin) of Hamas and its principal spokesperson.

Rantissi was responsible for directing many of the terrorist attacks perpetrated against Israel.  He vehemently opposed any attempt at negotiation or compromise between Israel and the Palestinians, and he refused to end the violent tide of terrorist attacks, stating that suicide bombings of civilians "are not terrorism."

Upon the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on March 22, 2004, Rantissi was named head of Hamas's activities in the Gaza Strip. On April 17, 2004, Israeli security forces killed Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

(Sources: BBC Online, Jewish Virtual Library)

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