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Sheikh Ahmed Yassin

sheikh ahmed yassin

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin

Hamas Founder and Terrorist Mastermind

(1936 - 2004)

Born in British Mandated Palestine in 1938, Ahmed Yassin was a refugee in Gaza from 1948 onward and formed extremist Islamic views early on in his childhood. He was received as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza in 1955 when it was a clandestine movement outlawed in Egypt, which at that time controlled the Gaza Strip. In 1966 Sheikh Yassin was imprisoned for a month by the Egyptian authorities for subversive activity. Having worked as a teacher, community worker, and preacher, he eventually established the Islamic Centre in Gaza in 1973, which soon controlled all religious institutions in the strip.
Yassin officially became the leader of Hamas when he registered it in Israel as an Islamic association in 1978. The terrorist organisation, with its name derived from the combination of the Arabic acronym for ‘the Islamic Resistance Movement' and the word ‘zeal', has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood movement that had been active in Egypt since the 1920's. Beforehand Yassin had been actively involved with a Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, yet he did not come to general prominence until the first Palestinian intifada of 1987. As the terrorist mastermind and leader of Hamas, he was responsible for most of the movement's activities: writing and editing leaflets, coordinating its financial affairs, functioning as liaison with radical Islamic elements abroad, and supervising terrorism and other violent activity. He also set up a broad organisational network, which directed local leaders and coordinated various operations. Among the network's primary functions was the management of the political and military work of the movement, including distributing leaflets, organising riots, enforcing strikes, etc.

In 1989, an Israeli court convicted Yassin of ordering Hamas members to kill two Israeli soldiers. He received a life sentence but was freed in 1997. Yassin was personally involved in an attempt to supply arms to a unit of Hamas's military wing, according to an indictment filed in Gaza military court. Mahmoud al-Ayish, 27, a Hamas activist from Rafah, confessed to the Israeli Shin Bet security service that he had met Yassin twice at his home and asked him to provide his cell with arms; Yassin referred him to other Hamas activists who could arm his unit. In public pronouncements, Yassin expressed explicit support for attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings, but he was careful not to give the impression that he was personally involved nor knew of attacks in advance. However, there is one known instance of Yassin's bodyguards giving lessons in the use of weapons to Hamas military activists who later participated in attacks on Israeli Defence Forces in the Gaza Strip.1

Yassin rejected the idea of reaching a peace settlement with Israel, declaring that "the so-called peace path is not peace and it is not a substitute for jihad and resistance."2 Holding the belief that no Arab leader could surrender any portion of Palestine, he opposed the Oslo peace process, refused to recognize the State of Israel, and condemned the results of the 2003 Aqaba summit in which Arab leaders vowed an end to the continued violence in the region. He was particularly powerful in persuading young Palestinians to join the ranks of Hamas, calling on them to offer their lives in the promise that suicide bombers who are willing to die for the Palestinian cause will achieve martyrdom for their service in a larger victory. Attempts to restrict Sheikh Yassin's activities, even by the Palestinian Authority, met with fierce resistance from his supporters.

Described by Israeli government ministers as the Palestinian Osama Bin Laden, Yassin was responsible for the killings of dozens of Israeli men, women, and children. Since the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, Hamas has carried out 425 separate terrorist attacks which have killed nearly 400 Israelis and injured over 2,000 individuals. It is responsible for over 50 suicide attacks which have killed nearly 300 people and injured over 1,600 individuals. In an interview with the Guardian in 2001, when asked if suicide bombings would continue, Yassin responded by saying that "all the Palestinians are ready to become martyrs."3 Yassin also predicted that Israel would not exist by the year 2027: "I had it from the Koran and then from reading history...the Koran promises Muslims victory and what God says will be fulfilled."4

Yassin was killed on 22 March 2004 in a targeted strike in Gaza.

1 Amos Harel. "Yassin involved in supplying arms to Hamas, Shin Bet told." Haaretz, 18 October 2002.

2 "Sheikh Yassin: Spiritual figurehead." BBC News Online, 22 March 2004.

3 Ewen MacAskill. "Suicide bomb restarts Hamas campaign." The Guardian, 10 July 2001.

4 Ewen MacAskill. "Suicide bomb restarts Hamas campaign." The Guardian, 10 July 2001.
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