Ahmad Ismail Yassin was born in a Palestinian village called Jorat Askalan in June 1936. Yassin's father died when he was five years old.
The young Ahmad Yassin joined Al Jora elementary school and continued studying there till the fifth grade when the Palestinian Cataclysm occurred in 1948. Then, he was forced to immigrate with his family to the Gaza Strip. There, according to Yassin himself, he used to go to the Egyptian army camps near Gaza Strip to gather the soldiers' leftovers and go back with it to his family. Yassin quit school between 1949-1950 to support his seven-member family working in one of the restaurants in Gaza, and then returned back to school.
When he was 16, Yassin's neck vertebra was broken while playing with his friend in 1952. After 45 days of putting his neck in the cast, it turned out that this accident would change his life forever, as he was destined to stay in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
In addition to being a quadriplegic, Yassin suffered from several illnesses including blindness in the right eye, caused by severe beating during a round of interrogations in the Israeli prisons, as well as chronic otitis and lung allergy, also caused by harsh detention conditions in the Israeli jails.
Yassin graduated from secondary school in the year 1957/1958 and managed to get a job as a teacher despite his health condition. Most of Yassin's income went to helping his family.
In his 20s, Yassin participated in the demonstrations that broke out in Gaza to denounce the 1956 tripartite aggression on Egypt, and showed immense public speech and political thinking skills. He became actively involved in the calls opposing to an international supervision over the Gaza Strip, stressing the need to regain Egyptian administration over it again.
In 1964, he enrolled in the English department of Ain Shams University, Cairo.
In 1965, Yassin's skills in public speeches drew the attention of the Egyptian intelligence in the Strip, so he was arrested in a campaign of arrests against the members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and was put in a solitary confinement cell for a month, until he was released after he was proved not to be involved with the Brotherhood. His detention period affected him significantly, and "rooted the hate of injustice" in his soul, as he said in an interview.
After the 1967 war, in which Israel occupied all the Palestinian territories including the Gaza Strip, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin continued inspiring the Muslims and Palestinians from the Al Abbasi Mosque's rostrum, calling to the resistance of the occupation. At the same time he was involved in gathering donations to help the families of the dead Palestinians and prisoners, later to work as a president of the Islamic Complex in Gaza.
Shaikh Yassin followed the principles and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood that was established in Egypt in 1928 by the Imam Hassan Al Banna. His Islamic preaching started annoying the Israeli occupying authorities, so he was arrested in 1982 and was charged of forming a military organization and possession of arms. An Israeli court sentenced him to 13 years of prison.
But, he was released in 1985 during a prisoner exchange deal between the Israel and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – The General Command.
Two years after his release, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin founded the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), along with a group of Muslim leaders (including Dr. Abd al Aziz al Rantissi).
Hamas aims at resisting the Israeli occupation in order to liberate historical Palestine. Hamas had a significant role in the Palestinian Intifada that broke out at that time, and was known as "the revolution of the mosques". Since that time, Sheikh Yassin was considered the spiritual leader of the movement.
As the Intifada stepped up its momentum against the Israeli occupation, the Israelis tried to limit Yassin's activities, and soldiers raided his home during August 1988, searched it and threatened him of banishment to Lebanon.
On May 18, 1989, Yassin was arrested along with hundreds of Hamas members after an escalated killing of Israeli soldiers and collaborators by Hamas. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 15 years on charges of inciting to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers as well as founding of Hamas movement and its military wing.
During a prisoner exchange deal between the Jordanian and Israeli governments in October 1997, Sheikh Yassin was swapped with two Israeli "Mossad" agents captured by the Jordanians following a failed assassination attempt on the life of Khaled Mashaal, another top Hamas figures.
Sheikh Yassin lived ever since in his home at the Al Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City. He survived with minor injuries a failed attempt on his life by the Israeli occupying forces on September 6, 2003.
Ahmed Yassin was killed in another Israeli attack on March 22, 2004. While he was being wheeled out of an early morning prayer session, he was struck by missiles fired from Israeli helicopter gunships and died instantly, along with seven others. More than a dozen people were injured in the attack, including two of his sons.
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
