On the morning of Saturday, October 7, the fiftieth anniversary of the October War in 1973 and the thirty-sixth anniversary of the formation of the Al-Qassam Brigades, several rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, followed by a shocking attack.
A number of Israeli soldiers and civilians have also been taken hostage as a result of the actions of the Palestinian militants.
The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, the ruling movement in the Gaza Strip, came to the fore during the recent operation, particularly as it claimed responsibility for the attack on Israel and dubbed the operation ‘Aqsa Storm’.
During this period artillery shelling and ‘specific’ infiltration operations were carried out, aimed at responding to ‘violent actions by Israel against the Palestinian people’.
Questions have been raised about Hamas’ military capabilities since the Oct. 7 Tornad Al-Aqsa operation, which many analysts say shocked Israel.
Most people also want to know about the main leaders of Hamas. We have collected details of the current key political and military leaders of Hamas.
Muhammad Al-Zaif: ‘A cat with nine lives
What we know so far about Mohammed Zaif comes from the Israeli and Palestinian media.
According to him, Muhammad Zaif was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis area of the Gaza Strip in 1965 when the area was under the control of Egypt.
At the time of his birth, his parents named him Muhammad Zaib Ibrahim al-Masri. But because of adopting a nomadic life to avoid constant Israeli airstrikes, he was named Zeif. The Arabic word Zaif means guest.
Little is known about his childhood, which was spent in the terrible wars of Israel and Palestine.
When the Hamas organization was founded in 1980, Muhammad Zaif was a teenager. Mohammed Zaif, who was committed to armed resistance against Israel, soon rose to prominence in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
After his arrest in 1989, he spent 16 months in prison. While in prison, he thought of establishing a separate military wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, and after his release, he put it into practice. He was one of the founders of Al-Qassam Brigade.
Zaif is also believed to be the creator of Hamas’ locally produced Qassam rockets and underground tunnels under Gaza.
He was close to Hamas engineer and bomb maker Yahya Ayyash, who is blamed for a series of suicide attacks on Israeli passenger buses in the 1990s.
Israel killed Yahya in 1996, but even after that suicide attacks continued in Israel. Zaif is blamed for several acts of revenge for Yahya’s death and is also accused of being involved in many other acts.
He was arrested in 2000 but managed to escape at the start of the second intifada. After the death of Salah Shahada, one of the founders of Hamas, in 2002, he assumed the leadership of the military wing of Hamas.
In the first decade of this century, Israel made four attempts to kill him, which he managed to avoid, but during which he suffered some serious injuries. According to information received by Israel, one of his eyes and another organ were lost in an attack.
Another assassination attempt on Mohammad Zaif took place during Israel’s operation in Gaza in 2014, when Mohammad Zaif’s home in the Gaza neighborhood of Sheikh Ridwan was targeted, killing his wife and their infant son, Ali.
Israel believed that he had also killed Mohammad Zaif, but he was not at home at the time.
These failed assassination attempts further enhanced his reputation and earned him the reputation of ‘the cat with nine lives’ among his enemies. They were also given the name Zeif, meaning guest, because they would not stay in any one place for more than one night to avoid Israeli operations.
Marwan Isa who ‘can turn plastic into iron’
Marwan Isa is considered to be Zaif’s right-hand man and the deputy commander of Al-Qassam Brigade, known as ‘Shadow’. Marwan is a good basketball player who was given the title of Palestinian commando. However, after joining Hamas in 1987, he was arrested by the Israeli army during the first Palestinian intifada and was imprisoned for five years.
According to Israel, as long as Marwan is alive, the war of nerves with Hamas will continue because Israeli sources consider Marwan to be a pragmatic person who is “so intelligent that he can turn plastic into iron.”
He was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in 1997 and released after the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. After his release, he played a leading role in the al-Qassam Brigades and was wounded in an assassination attempt by Israel in 2006.
Israel destroyed his home in Gaza twice in 2014 and 2021. Before 2011, it was not even possible to identify them. However, when an event was held for Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for the release of an Israeli soldier, Marwan appeared in a group photo.
Yahya Ibrahim Al-Sinwar: Founder of Hamas’ secret service
Yahya Ibrahim was born in 1962 and heads the political bureau of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
He is the founder of Majid, Hamas’s secret agency, which handles security matters such as interrogating Israeli agents.
Yahya Ibrahim was arrested three times. First in 1982 when Israel imprisoned him for four months.
In 1988, he was arrested for the third time and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, when Israeli soldier Jalad Shulat was taken hostage, a prisoner exchange took place in 2011 in which Yahya was also released.
Haya regained the role of a key figure in Hamas and was designated a terrorist by the United States in September 2015.
However, in 2017, he was chosen as the political head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Abdullah Al-Baghouti: ‘The Prince of Shadows’
Abdullah al-Ghouti was born in Kuwait in 1972 and moved to Jordan in 1990, where he received citizenship. He then went to study electronic engineering at a university in South Korea. However, he dropped out after three years without completing his degree.
Meanwhile, he got a permit to enter Palestine. While studying engineering, he had mastered explosives.
When he met his cousin Bilal in Palestine, he demonstrated his skills by making a bomb himself in a deserted area. Bilal told this to one of his commanders in Nablus, after which Abdullah Al-Qassam joined the brigade.
Abdullah started preparing explosives. They also manufactured detonators and set up a special military factory for the same purpose. According to estimates, 66 Israelis have been killed and 500 injured so far in the operations led by Abdullah.
In 2003, the Israeli army accidentally arrested him and then interrogated him for three months. In the case against him, he was sentenced to the longest sentence in history. He was sentenced to life imprisonment 67 times while 5200 years of imprisonment was in addition.
He went on hunger strike after being kept in solitary confinement. He is also called ‘Prince of Shadows’ due to the title of his book written during his imprisonment. In this book, he has highlighted his resistance movement and also provided details of military operations.
Ismail Haniya
Ismail Abdel Salam Haniyeh, also known as Abdul Abd, was born in a Palestinian refugee camp. He is the political head of Hamas who also served as Prime Minister in 2006.
In 1989, he was imprisoned by Israel for three years, after which he was deported along the Lebanese border with other Hamas leaders. Ismail Haniya was in exile for almost a year.
However, he returned to Gaza a year later and in 1997 was appointed the head of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s office.
On February 16, 2006, Hamas nominated him for the post of Prime Minister of Palestine and he assumed this position on the 20th of the same month.
In 2006, Israeli army helicopters also targeted Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s offices. Three guards were injured in the attack, but Ismail Haniya was not present at the time.
A year later, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fired him when the al-Qassam Brigades took over security affairs in the Gaza Strip. Ismail Haniyeh called this action unconstitutional and said that his government will continue to work for the Palestinian people. Later, Ismail Haniyeh called for reconciliation with Fatah.
On May 6, 2017, Ismail Haniyeh was elected head of the Political Bureau by the Shura of Hamas.
Khalid Meshaal
Khalid Meshaal Abulwaleed was born in the year 1956 in a village called Salwad.
He received his primary education there after which his family moved to Kuwait where he completed his secondary education.
Meshaal is one of the founders of the Hamas movement and has been the head of its political bureau since its inception. He has also been the president of the political bureau of the movement from 1996 to 2017.
In 1997, Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad targeted Meshaal on the direct orders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ten Mossad agents entered Jordan with fake Canadian passports. Khalid Meshaal was a Jordanian citizen at the time and was growing up in the capital city of Amman when he was injected with a poisonous substance.
Authorities in Jordan learned of the plan and arrested the Mossad members. The King of Jordan at that time, Hussein bin Talal, asked the Israeli Prime Minister to give an antidote to this poisonous substance. At first, Netanyahu did not accept his request, but then due to the intervention of President Bill Clinton and American pressure, Netanyahu was forced to provide the antidote.
Khalid Meshaal made his first visit to Gaza in December 2012. This visit of Meshaal was the first time since his transfer from the Palestinian territories.
Meshaal was greeted by Palestinian leaders at the Rafah crossing and was greeted by Palestinians lining the streets as he entered Gaza City.
In 2017, the Shura Council of the movement elected Ismail Haniya as the head of the political bureau and today the movement has made him the head of the international department.
