2017 marks the 13th year of the death of an icon Palestinians call “the spiritual father of the Palestinian resistance,” Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.

Sheikh Yassin was born in Jourat Ashkelon village in June 1936, a year marking the first Palestinian armed revolt against the growing Israeli interference in the Palestinian territories.

When he was 16, Sheikh Yassin sustained a severe spinal injury while playing with his friends. His neck was kept in plaster for 45 days. The damage to his spinal cord rendered him a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. He had used a wheelchair since the accident.

Sheikh Yassin was killed on March 22, 2004, when an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at him as he was being wheeled from dawn prayers at the Islamic Compound Mosque, in Sabra neighborhood, in the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Hamas honors family of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin

The Hamas Movement on Tuesday honored the family of its founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on the 13th anniversary of his martyrdom during a sit-in staged outside his home in as-Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Abu Daf hailed the struggle of Sheikh Yassin against the occupation and the sacrifices and services he made for his own people and the national cause.

“Sheikh Ahmed Yassin struggled to remove the Zionist occupation and taught the [Palestinian] generations how to direct others to the path of Allah and reform the reality of their people,” Abu Daf said.

“Sheikh Yassin won the hearts of all people around him with love, and he showed us how to have fervent resolve to change the people’s reality and remove the injustice being done to them,” he added.

Senior Hamas officials and residents from the neighborhood participated in the sit-in, where relatives of Sheikh Yassin received an honorary shield as a mark of tribute to the Sheikh and his family.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed on his wheelchair on March 22, 2004 along with some citizens and companions in an Israeli dawn airstrike outside a Mosque in Gaza City.

Senior Hamas leader Mushir al-Masri called on Muslims to pool resources and heal all sectarian rifts in order to face up to the Israeli occupation.

Masri said, at the end of a rally held in northern Gaza to commemorate the 12th anniversary of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s assassination, the Palestinian cause is that of every Muslim in all corners of the earth. He reiterated Hamas’s readiness to cooperate with all Arab parties so as to boost bilateral bonds.

He said talks with Egyptian parties have been ongoing to prop up fraternity ties. “Our only enemy is the Israeli occupation. Hamas’s weapon will be held to Israel’s head only,” Masri added. “Palestine is indivisible. Palestinians are one and the same. We shall never forfeit a single inch of our native soil,” Masri emphasized.

“Occupied Jerusalem is the capital of our future independent state,” he said. “Our people will never have a moment’s rest until they return to their motherland from which they have been displaced.” According to Masri, armed resistance is Palestinians’ only path to liberation.

He also vowed that Hamas will do whatever it takes to release Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. “The Palestinian anti-occupation uprising will keep going until Palestinians’ dreams come true,” the Hamas leader concluded.

Hamas will go along the footsteps of Sheikh Yassin until the liberation of the occupied Palestinian territories, senior Hamas leader Ismail Redwan said on Wednesday evening.

Speaking at a rally held by the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in Gaza to commemorate the 12th anniversary of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s assassination, Redwan said: “We are gathering today outside of Sheikh Yassin’s home to prove that we are still tracking his footsteps, 12 years after his assassination.”

Redwan said the al-Qassam Brigades have all the means and potentials to oust the Israeli occupation in case it does not cease its aggressions on the Palestinian people and its holy sites.

The Hamas leader said Palestinians will forever cling to armed resistance as the only path to liberating the occupied Palestinian territories, restoring the prisoners’ freedom, and achieving the Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their native soil.

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin did not resist the occupation carrying guns or even stones. He was a man with a vision and a mission. He was the mastermind of the new Palestinian generation that swore to be free. And for that, Israel sought to imprison him and then kill him.

On March 22nd, 2004, two Israeli warplanes targeted and attacked with several missiles a totally paralyzed elderly man pushed on a wheelchair. Minutes later, all Palestine and all Arab and Muslim countries erupted in protest and anger.

The death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin took his body away from his followers and supporters. But his mind and his ideas will live forever in their hearts and minds. Ahmad Yassin, founder of Hamas Movement, has had a distinctive political and spiritual place in the hearts of the Palestinian resistance, which made him one of the notable figures of the Palestinian national struggle of the past century.

Tough life

Ahmad Ismail Yassin was born in a historic village of ancient Ashkelon, known as Al-Jorah in June, 1936. In that same year, the first armed revolution against the increasing Zionist influence in the Palestinian territories was launched. His father died when he was five. Ahmed Yassin witnessed the Arab defeat, also known as Nakba, in 1948 when he was 12 years old.

Talking about that time, Yassin said, "The Arab armies that came to fight Israel unarmed us with the pretext that no force would be present other than the armies'. Consequently, our fate was attached to theirs, and we were defeated by their defeat.

The Zionist gangs then started waging massacres and pogroms terrorizing the defenseless Palestinians. Had our arms been in our hands, the course of events would have been different." Yassin enrolled to Al-Jourah Primary School for the first five grades.

Nonetheless, the Nakba that befell Palestine and displaced its people forced him along with hundreds of thousands to evacuate. His family ended up in Gaza.

In Gaza, everything was different and the family suffered poverty, starvation, and deprivation, like most of the displaced families then. Ahmed Yassin used to go to the Egyptian military camps with his counterparts to collect the leftovers of the soldiers' food to feed their families. He quit school for a year, 1949-1950, to help his seven-member family's livelihood by working in a small fast food restaurant in Gaza. He went back to school later on.

Paralyzed at 16

When he was 16 years old, Yassin had an accident that changed his entire life. He had a fractured neck vertebra while he was playing with his counterparts in 1952. After forty-five days with a gypsum-splinted neck, he learned that he would spend the rest of his life paralyzed.

Furthermore, he suffered from many diseases, including loss of vision in the right eye due to brutal Israeli investigation while he was in jail. He also suffered from a severe weakness in the left eye, a chronic inflammation of the ear, lungs diseases, and other gastrointestinal infections.

Political activity

Yassin finished high school in 1957/58 and managed to get a job despite the initial refusal due to his health condition. And most of his teaching income was spent helping his poor family. When he was 20, he took part in the demonstrations that broke out in Gaza to protest the tripartite aggression on Egypt in 1956.

He showed rhetorical and organizational capacities as he actively joined his counterparts in refusing the international supervision over Gaza and insisting on the importance of the return of the Egyptian administration. His oratorical skills began to develop distinctively and his name started to resonate among the scholars of Gaza.

This invoked the Egyptian intelligence to arrest him in 1965 as part of its crack on Muslim Brotherhood. He remained in solitary confinement for around a month since he had no connection to the Brotherhood. His time in jail affected him as he described its impacts on him saying, "[My time in jail] deepened my hatred for oppression and emphasized that the legacy of any authority depends on its justice, and belief in the human right of living free."

The Israeli occupation

Yassin's activism disturbed the Israeli occupation, so he was arrested in 1982 and charged with forming a military organization and possession of weapons. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but he was released in 1985 in a prisoners swap deal between the occupation authorities and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Founding Hamas Movement In 1987, Yassin agreed with a number of Islamic leaders, who adopted the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip, to establish an Islamic organization to resist the occupation until the liberation of Palestine. They agreed to name it "The Islamic Resistance Movement", more commonly known by its acronym "Hamas".

He played a major role in the first Palestinian Intifada. Since then, he has been considered the spiritual leader of the Movement. As the resistance escalated, the occupation started thinking of a way to terminate Yassin's activities.

In 1988, the occupation stormed and searched his house and threatened to exile him to Lebanon. As the resistance attack against Israeli occupation forces and its collaborators increased, the Israeli authorities arrested Sheikh Yassin along with hundreds of Hamas figures on May 18th, 1989.

On October 16th, 1991, a military court issued a life-imprisonment and a 15-year sentence against him. In the indictment, he was charged with incitement to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers and of establishing Hamas and its military and security apparatuses.

Attempts to set him free

A group of Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, tried to set Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and other elderly prisoners free. Therefore, Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier near Jerusalem on December 13th, 1992.

Al-Qassam offered Israel to swap the soldier with these prisoners, but Israel refused the offer and attacked the place where the soldier was kept killing him and all members of the resistance group along with the commander of the Israeli commando unit. In another swap deal, on October 1st, 1997, between Jordan and Israel in the wake of a failed assassination attempt of Khalid Mishaal, Head of Hamas Political Bureau in Amman, Yassin was set free.

House arrest

As Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah the mainstream faction of the PLO, carry contradictory strategies, the PA often tends to put pressure on Hamas. As one of those pressures, the PA imposed house arrest on Sheikh Yassin more than once.

Martyrdom

On September 6th, 2003, Yassin survived an Israeli assassination attempt as an Israeli helicopter targeted a flat where Ahmad Yassin and Ismail Haniyeh were meeting with other Hamas members. Yassin was slightly wounded in his right arm.

On March 22nd, 2004, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated by Israeli Apaches. The helicopters launched three rockets on his wheelchair while he was leaving Al-Mujamma Al-Islami Mosque in Al-Sabra neighborhood, Gaza. Seven of his attendants were also killed and two of his sons were injured in this attack that was commanded by Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel then.

The struggle goes on

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was one of those few and rare individuals who gave everything to Palestine. His path was clear as crystal: Palestine comes first. Sheikh Yassin always taught Palestinians that the killing of leaders should never stop the struggle but ignite it. And nowadays, we have hundreds of thousands in Palestine following the steps of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

First Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Dr. Ahmad Bahar called on Palestinian factions to get united on the approach of resistance and to maintain constants of the Palestinian Question as well as to work on liberating the Palestinian land and prisoners.

Bahar’s statements came in a visit, on Monday, paid by a delegation of the PLC to the family of Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, the founder of Hamas Movement, to mark the 12th anniversary of his martyrdom after being assassinated by Israeli forces.

Bahar said assassinating leaders and murdering children will not make Palestinian people surrender, and stressed on resistance as the the only way to the liberation of Palestine.

Ismail Haneyya, deputy chairman of Hamas political bureau and former PM, asserted the importance of Palestinian political alliance to agree on a mutual national program. He also emphasized that Hamas is adhering to the path and ideology of its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Launching Hamas's official website from Sheikh Yassin's house on Sunday, Haneyya said, "Yassin's ideology has become more profound in the hearts of Hamas supporters, Palestinians, and the Muslims over time."

"On Yassin's martyrdom anniversary, we assert our adherence to our principles of resistance and right of return," Haneyya added. "Resistance, not negotiations, is the way to fulfill the Palestinians' aspirations of independence."

Haneyya also confirmed that Hamas is adhering to national unity. “We demand our people to achieve the reconciliation and what was agreed upon."

Addressing the Palestinians, Haneyya said, "Let's establish political coalition, and form a national Palestinian program."

Haneyya called upon the PLO "not to retract the latest decisions of the Central Council, especially ending the negotiations and security coordination with the occupation."

Arab and Islamic world

In regard to Hamas's relation with the Arab and Islamic worlds, Haneyya said, "We affirm our adherence to the Arab and Islamic depth. Yassin had epitomized the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and universal all together."

He also insisted on "our relations with the Arab and Islamic worlds. We are keen on having balanced relations with all parties."

Haneyya asked "everyone to embrace Jerusalem and the Palestinian prisoners and refugees, and to provide the necessary means to support their steadfastness."

He indicated that Hamas "is in good terms with all Arabs, and it does not interfere in the affairs of any state. On the contrary, we wish freedom and dignity for the Arab and Muslim people. Our enemy is here in Palestine, and our guns would only be directed towards the occupier, as Yassin taught us."

International relations

Furthermore, Haneyya confirmed that Hamas has relations with many European countries, indicating that they have continuous meetings.

He stressed that the humanitarian dimension of the Palestinian cause is the reason behind Hamas's relation with the world. He continued, "We are not fighting Jews for being Jews, but rather we are fighting the occupiers of our lands and the perpetrators of massacres against us."

Haneyya valued the stance of the European Court against the inclusion of Hamas in the "terrorist list". He pointed out that this stance would pave the way for correcting the negative stances towards Hamas and the Palestinian cause.

As regarding the European proposals of a long-term truce with Israel, Haneyya mentioned that there was a number of proposals, but Hamas has not responded to any yet. He confirmed that any decision in this regard needed a national consensus as it was not only a Hamas affair.

He continued, "We cannot take any decisions regarding Gaza without the West Bank and Jerusalem," indicating that Hamas's view does not focus only on Gaza.

Jerusalem

Haneyya emphasized that "Jerusalem's cause is not only political for us; it is a religious cause as well." He indicated that "the Palestinian people will confront the enemy's leaders’ statements that Jerusalem is theirs and that there will be no return for the borders of 1967. Palestinians will oppose the judaization attempts. The people and resistance will not accept manipulating the cultural, political and religious aspects of Jerusalem."

He asserted that "we are clinging to our land and rights, and we will never give up regardless of Israel's arrogance and extremism."

Hamas’s knowledge of the social media is improving, like #askhamas which was launched few days ago so as to interact with people from all over the world, Hamas launched #in_memory_of_Palestine_Sheikh on Saturday March 21 coinciding with the 11th assassination anniversary of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin which fell on Sunday March 22.

Launching the campaign

Ibrahim Musallam the coordinator of the campaign and the new information officer in Hamas affirmed to the PIC reporter that the campaign was launched on Saturday at 9 pm aiming to tweet for the memory of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and clarified that this is the least Hamas can do for its founder on the anniversary of his assassination.

Musallam pointed out that before the start of the campaign there were scores of tweets glorifying the Sheikh and his attributes and ethics and noted that thousands of twitter users started from the very beginning of the campaign to post videos and pictures of the Sheikh.

The new information officer in Hamas thanked all the participants in the campaign and gave special thanks to al-Aqsa channel for helping in spreading the hashtag.
 
The idea of the hashtag

Musallam clarified that the goal of the hashtag is to let people know about Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his ideas which Hamas considers to be its approach in liberating Palestine.

"This is the least we can offer on the assassination anniversary of the founder of the largest Palestinian liberation movement", Musallam said, adding, "The leadership of Hamas encouraged the idea of the hashtag, and many political and media prominent figures tweeted on the hashtag which reflects the Sheikh’s stature in people's hearts ".
 
Tweets
 
Member of Hamas political bureau Izzat al-Resheq tweeted: "Palestine will never forget you and will always see you in the eyes of all resistance fighters who swore to never quit fighting until they win one of the two triumphs: victory or martyrdom."
 
Editor in chief of the Qatari Sharq newspaper Jaber al-Harami tweeted: "May your soul rest in peace.. Your students will continue the journey you started…They started from hurling stones and now they manufacture drones".
 
The well-known Egyptian preacher Khalid Abu-Shadi tweeted: "Those who live following on a certain path will most likely die while on it; that's why his death was shortly after he performed dawn prayer".

On March 22nd, 2004, two Israeli warplanes targeted and attacked with several missiles a totally paralyzed elderly man pushed on a wheelchair. Minutes later, all Palestine and all Arab and Muslim countries erupted in protest and anger. 

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, 68, did not resist the occupation carrying guns or even stones. He was a man with a vision and a mission. He was the mastermind of the new Palestinian generation that swore to be free. And for that, Israel sought to imprison him and kill him. 

The death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin took his body away from his followers and supporters. But his mind and his ideas will live forever in their hearts and minds. 

Ahmad Yassin, founder of Hamas Movement, has had a distinctive political and spiritual place in the hearts of the Palestinian resistance, which made him one of the notable figures of the Palestinian national struggle of the past century.

Early life

Ahmad Ismail Yassin was born in a historic village of ancient Ashkelon known as Al-Jorah in June, 1936. In that same year, the first armed revolution against the increasing Zionist influence in the Palestinian territories was launched. His father died when he was five.

Ahmed Yassin witnessed the Arab defeat, also known as Nakba, in 1948 when he was 12 years old. Talking about that time, Yassin said, "The Arab armies that came to fight Israel unarmed us with the pretext that no force would be present other than the armies'. Consequently, our fate was attached to theirs, and we were defeated by their defeat. The Zionist gangs then started waging massacres and pogroms terrorizing the defenseless Palestinians. Had our arms been in our hands, the course of events would have been different."

Tough life

Yassin enrolled to Al-Jourah Primary School for the first five grades. Nonetheless, the Nakba that befell Palestine and displaced its people forced him along with hundreds of thousands to evacuate. His family ended up in Gaza. In Gaza, everything was different and the family suffered poverty, starvation, and deprivation, like most of the displaced families then. 

Ahmed Yassin used to go to the Egyptian military camps with his counterparts to collect the leftovers of the soldiers' food to feed their families. He quit school for a year, 1949-1950, to help his seven-member family's livelihood by working in a small fast food restaurant in Gaza. He went back to school later on.

Injury

When he was 16 years old, Yassin had an accident that changed his entire life. He had a fractured neck vertebra while he was playing with his counterparts in 1952. After forty-five days with a gypsum-splinted neck, he learned that he would spend the rest of his life paralyzed.

Furthermore, he suffered from many diseases, including loss of vision in the right eye due to brutal Israeli investigation while he was in jail. He also suffered from a severe weakness in the left eye, a chronic inflammation of the ear, lungs diseases, and other gastrointestinal infections.

Political activity

Yassin finished high school in 1957/58 and managed to get a job despite the initial refusal due to his health condition. And most of his teaching income was spent helping his poor family.

When he was 20, he took part in the demonstrations that broke out in Gaza to protest the tripartite aggression on Egypt in 1956. He showed rhetorical and organizational capacities as he actively joined his counterparts in refusing the international supervision over Gaza and insisting on the importance of the return of the Egyptian administration.

His oratorical skills began to develop distinctively and his name started to resonate among the scholars of Gaza. This invoked the Egyptian intelligence to arrest him in 1965 as part of its crack on Muslim Brotherhood. He remained in solitary confinement for around a month since he had no connection to the Brotherhood.

His time in jail affected him as he described its impacts on him saying, "[My time in jail] deepened my hatred for oppression and emphasized that the legacy of any authority depends on its justice, and belief in the human right of living free."

The Israeli occupation

Yassin's activism disturbed the Israeli occupation, so he was arrested in 1982 and charged with forming a military organization and possession of weapons. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but he was released in 1985 in a prisoners swap deal between the occupation authorities and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Founding Hamas Movement

In 1987, Yassin agreed with a number of Islamic leaders, who adopted the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip, to establish an Islamic organization to resist the occupation until the liberation of Palestine. They agreed to name it "The Islamic Resistance Movement", more commonly known by its acronym "Hamas".

He played a major role in the first Palestinian Intifada. Since then, he has been considered the spiritual leader of the Movement.

As the resistance escalated, the occupation started thinking of a way to terminate Yassin's activities. In 1988, the occupation stormed and searched his house and threatened to exile him to Lebanon. As the resistance attack against Israeli occupation forces and its collaborators increased, the Israeli authorities arrested Sheikh Yassin along with hundreds of Hamas figures on May 18th, 1989.

On October 16th, 1991, a military court issued a life-imprisonment and a 15-year sentence against him. In the indictment, he was charged with incitement to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers and of establishing Hamas and its military and security apparatuses.

Attempts to set him free

A group of Al-Qassam Brigades tried to set Shaikh Ahmed Yassin and other elderly prisoners free. Therefore, Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier near Jerusalem on December 13th, 1992. Al-Qassam offered Israel to swap the soldier with these prisoners, but Israel refused the offer and attacked the place where the soldier was kept killing him, the commander of the Israeli commando unit, and all members of the resistance group.

In another swap deal, on October 1st, 1997, between Jordan and Israel in the wake of a failed assassination attempt of Khalid Mishaal, Head of Hamas Political Bureau in Amman, Yassin was set free.

House arrest

As Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah the mainstream faction of the PLO, carry contradictory strategies, the PA often tends to put pressure on Hamas. As one of those pressures, the PA imposed house arrest on Sheikh Yassin more than once.

Martyrdom

On September 6th, 2003, Yassin survived an Israeli assassination attempt as an Israeli helicopter targeted a flat where Ahmad Yassin and Ismail Haniyeh were meeting with off Hamas members. Yassin was slightly wounded in his right arm.

At the break of dawn on Monday, March 22nd, 2004, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was brutally murdered by Israeli Apaches. The helicopters launched three rockets on his wheelchair while he was leaving Al-Mujamma Al-Islami Mosque in Al-Sabra neighborhood, Gaza. Seven of his attendants were also killed and two of his sons were injured in this attack that was commanded by Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel then.

The struggle goes on

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was one of those few and rare individuals who gave everything to Palestine. His path was clear as crystal: Palestine comes first. Sheikh Yassin always taught Palestinians that the killing of leaders should never stop the struggle but ignite it. And nowadays, we have hundreds of thousands in Palestine following the steps of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

The Hamas Movement has said that it will never lay down the resistance weapon and stop its armed struggle against the Israeli occupation until the liberation of the whole Palestinian land.

This came in a statement released on Saturday night by the Movement on the 11th anniversary of the assassination of its founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Hamas stressed that the resistance project of Sheikh Yassin and his memory would remain alive in the "hands and eyes" of every Palestinian fighter confronting the occupation and resisting its crimes.

On March 22, 2004, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas founder and spiritual leader, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike as he was being wheeled back home from early morning prayers. The aerial attack also claimed the lives of seven of his bodyguards and nine bystanders.

His killing was condemned by the international community and seen at the time as an obstacle to the peace process.

Hamas carves memorial statue for group’s founder Sheikh Yassin

Hamas Movement has sculpted a memorial statue commemorating the group’s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on the occasion of his 11th assassination anniversary.

The statue was placed near the Islamic Compound Mosque in al-Sabra neighborhood, in Central Gaza, where Sheikh Yassin was killed.

“This is the least we can do to pay homage to Sheikh Yassin who sacrificed his life to serve the Palestinian cause and breed a generation of resistance that has toppled the sadism of the Israeli occupation,” former Minister of Agriculture, Ali al-Tarshaoui, said.

“Sheikh Yassin is the wheelchair-bound man who founded a movement covering all walks of life, including spiritual guidance, resistance, and education,” he added.

Dozens of martyrs’ families in al-Sabra quarter joined the ceremony in an attempt to both remember and commemorate Sheikh Yassin’s life and death as they were exhibited in a footage screened during the celebration.

Sunday March 22 marks the 11th assassination anniversary of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, killed, as he had left the mosque after attending dawn prayers, by three missiles fired by Israeli warplanes.