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Mahmoud Zahar

mahmoud zahar

Mahmoud Zahar

Hamas Spokesperson

(Born 1945)

Mahmoud Zahar is one of the founding members of Hamas and a spokesman for the organisation. On 20 March 2006, following their suprising victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, Hamas named al-Zahar foreign minister.

Born in 1945 to a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother, Zahar graduated from Cairo University in 1971, after studying medicine. Following the foundation of Hamas in 1987, he was appointed as the organisation's first press spokesman. He was expelled by Israel from Gaza in 1992 and sent into temporary exile in Lebanon.  

In 1997, he was appointed to the senior Hamas leadership and he served as Hamas liaison with the PLO in the mid-1990s. Zahar had close connections to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and was his personal physician.

Zahar has been responsible for perpetrating a large number of deadly terror attacks against Israel. He has expressed his opposition to any compromise with Israel: "Our position is clear: all of Palestine. Every inch of Palestine belongs to the Muslims."

Zahar has been arrested several times by Israel and, following a wave of Hamas bombings in 1996, he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority. He opposes any compromise with the Palestinian Authority and has said that Hamas has the infrastructure to take over leadership from the Palestinian Authority "politically, financially, [and] socially."

Zahar has written several books, including a novel, "Nowhere Under the Sun", in response Binyamin Netanyahu's book "Place Under the Sun".

Zahar was injured and his son and bodyguard were killed when Israel bombed his home in Gaza in September 2003, following a spate of suicide bombings.

Following the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in 2004, there has been much speculation that Zahar was appointed as the new leader of Hamas. However, at the time Hamas refused to reveal the identity of the new leader.

At the moment, Zahar is one of the leading figures in the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority cabinet. (Sources: The Guardian, Jewish Virtual Library)

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