Ismail Haniyeh

Ismail Abdel Salam Ahmed Haniyeh (born 29 January 1962) is a senior political leader of Hamas, the current chairman of Hamas’s political bureau. Haniyeh was born in the Al-Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1962. He studied at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he first became involved with Hamas, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Arabic literature in 1987. Appointed to head a Hamas office in 1997, he has since grown in the ranks of the organization. Haniyeh was head of the Hamas list that won the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, and so became Prime Minister of the State of Palestine. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah–Hamas conflict, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued to exercise prime ministerial authority in the Gaza Strip. In September 2016, reports indicated Haniyeh would replace Khaled Mashaal as chief of Hamas's Political Bureau. He was elected as Hamas political chief on 6 May 2017. Early life and education Haniyeh was born in the Al-Shati refugee camp in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. His parents became refugees, after they fled their homes near what is now Ashkelon, Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He attended United Nations-run schools and graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza with a degree in Arabic literature in 1987. While at university, he had become involved with Hamas. From 1985 to 1986, he was head of the students' council representing the Muslim Brotherhood. He also played as a midfielder in the Islamic Association football team. He graduated at about the same time the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation started in the Gaza Strip.