Khaled Mashal facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Khaled Mashal
خالد مشعل |
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Mashal in 2009
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| Acting Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau |
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| Covering duties 16 October 2024 Serving with Khalil al-Hayya, Zaher Jabarin, Muhammad Ismail Darwish, and an unnamed Hamas official
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| Preceded by | Yahya Sinwar |
| Succeeded by | TBA |
| Covered duties 31 July 2024 – 6 August 2024 |
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| Preceded by | Ismail Haniyeh |
| Succeeded by | Yahya Sinwar |
| 2nd Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau |
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| In office 1996 – 6 May 2017 |
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| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | Mousa Abu Marzook |
| Succeeded by | Ismail Haniyeh |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 28 May 1956 Silwad, Jordanian West Bank |
| Political party | Hamas |
| Spouse |
Amal Saleh Al-Boureni
(m. 1980) |
| Children | 7 |
| Residences | Silwad, West Bank (1956–1967) Kuwait City, Kuwait (1967–1990) Amman, Jordan (1990–1999) Doha, Qatar (1999–2001) Damascus, Syria (2001–2012) Doha, Qatar (2012–present) |
| Alma mater | Kuwait University (BSc) |
Khaled Mashal (Arabic: خالد مشعل, romanized: Khālid Mashʿal, Levantine Arabic: [ˈχæːled ˈmeʃʕæl]; born 28 May 1956) is a Palestinian politician who served as the second chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from 1996 until May 2017, when he was succeeded by Ismail Haniyeh. He has also covered duties as the acting leader of Hamas twice, from July 2024 until August 2024 and since October 2024, after both leaders were assassinated by Israel. He was regarded as one of the most prominent leaders of Hamas since the death of Ahmed Yassin, alongside Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 Six-Day War forced Mashal's family to flee Palestine. He has since lived in exile in other parts of the Arab world. For that reason, he was considered part of Hamas' "external leadership".
After the founding of Hamas in the wake of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation in 1987, Mashal became the leader of the Kuwaiti branch of the organization. In 1992, he became a founding member of Hamas' politburo and its chairman. He became the recognized head of Hamas after Israel assassinated both Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in the spring of 2004. Under his leadership, Hamas secured a surprise majority of the seats in the Palestinian legislative election in 2006. Mashal stepped down as Hamas' politburo chairman at the end of his term limit in 2017.
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Early life and education
Mashal was born in 1956 in Silwad in the Jordanian-occupied West Bank. He attended Silwad Elementary School until fifth grade. His father, Abd al-Qadir Mashal, was a farmer (fellah) and had moved to Kuwait in 1957 to work in agriculture and as an imam. He had participated in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt with the Palestinian guerilla leader Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni.
Following the 1967 Six-Day War, during which Israel occupied the West Bank, his family fled to Jordan and, after a month or two, they joined Abd al-Qadir in Kuwait, where Mashal completed high school. He entered the prestigious Abdullah al-Salim Secondary School in the early 1970s and joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1971.
Mashal enrolled in Kuwait University in 1974, and soon became involved in student politics. He headed the Islamic Justice list (qa’imat al-haq al-islamiyya) in the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) elections in 1977. The list was based on the Palestinian Islamic movement, a part of the Muslim Brotherhood. The GUPS elections were cancelled and he founded the Islamic League for Palestinian Students (al-rabita al-islamiyya li tolaab filastin). He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in physics in 1978.
As a 19-year-old, Mashal visited historical Palestine in 1975 for two months for the first time since the occupation began in 1967. He was able to travel extensively in both Israel and the occupied territories. The trip deepened his feelings for his homeland and his sense of the losses in 1948 and 1967.
Political career
Early political career
After graduating, Mashal became a teacher and taught physics in Kuwait until 1984. In 1983, the Palestinian Islamic movement convened an internal, closed conference in an Arab state, which included delegates from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Palestinian refugees from Arab states. The conference laid the foundation stone for the creation of Hamas. Mashal was part of the project's leadership. After 1984, he devoted himself to the project on a full-time basis. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, he and the rest of Hamas' leadership in Kuwait relocated to Jordan.
Mashal was a founding member of Hamas' politburo, and was elected chairman in 1996, following the imprisonment of his predecessor Mousa Abu Marzook in 1995.
Assassination attempt
On 25 September 1997, Mossad agents acting under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet attempted to assassinate him. The agents entered Jordan on fake Canadian passports and disguised as tourists. Two of them waited at the entrance of the Hamas offices in Jordan's capital Amman, and, as Mashal walked into his office, one of them came up from behind and held a device to Mashal's left ear that transmitted a fast-acting poison. Mashal's bodyguards were suspicious prior to the attack and were able to chase the agents down and capture them. Other agents were also found and captured. In an interview, he described the attack as "a loud noise in my ear ... like a boom, like an electric shock." Initially, he thought the agents had failed to hurt him but later in the day he developed a severe headache and began vomiting. He was rushed to a Jordanian hospital where his condition rapidly deteriorated.
Immediately after the incident, Jordan's King Hussein demanded that Netanyahu turn over the antidote for the poison, threatening to sever diplomatic relations and to try the detained Mossad agents. King Hussein feared that the death of a Hamas leader would trigger riots in his kingdom, perhaps even a civil war. Netanyahu refused, and the incident quickly grew in political significance. With Israeli-Jordanian relations rapidly deteriorating, King Hussein threatened to void the historic 1994 peace between the two countries should Mashal die. U.S President Bill Clinton intervened and compelled Netanyahu to turn over the antidote.
The head of Mossad, Danny Yatom, flew to Jordan, with Netanyahu's consent, bringing an antidote to treat Mashal. ..... They administered the antidote, which saved Mashal's life.
According to Ronen Bergman based on internal IDF sources, Mashal's antidote only secured the release of the two Mossad Kidon agents that were carrying out the assassination attempt. At least six other Mossad agents involved in the operations were holed up in the Israeli embassy. King Hussein would only release them if Israel released Ahmed Yassin and a large number of other Palestinian prisoners. King Hussein needed the demands to be "enough to enable the king to be able to publicly defend the release of the hit team."
In a 2008 interview, Mashal said of the attempt on his life: "[It] made me more positive about life. I became more courageous in the face of death. My faith became stronger that a man does not die until his time comes. That is, I will die when God decides, not when Mossad decides. It also made me more resolute in fulfilling my responsibilities."
Expulsion from Jordan
In August 1999, Hamas "external leadership" was expelled from Jordan by King Abdullah II. The King feared that the activities of Hamas and its Jordanian allies would jeopardize peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel ( Saeb Erekat and Gilead Sher, leading to Sharm El Sheikh Memorandum), and accused Hamas of engaging in illegitimate activities within Jordan. In mid-September 1999, authorities arrested several Hamas leaders, including Mashal and Ibrahim Ghosheh on their return from a visit to Iran, and charged them with being members of an illegal organization, storing weapons, conducting military exercises, and using Jordan as a training base, charges they denied. Mashal was expelled from Jordan in November, and initially made Qatar his home. In 2001, he moved to Damascus, Syria.
Election victory
Hamas won a majority of the seats in the Palestinian legislative election in 2006.
Defying pressure from the Quartet, Mashal announced on 29 January 2006 that Hamas had no plans to disarm but added that Hamas was willing to join arms with other Palestinian factions and form an army "like any independent state". Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened to have Mashal assassinated.
Prisoner swap
Mashal was involved in negotiating a prisoner exchange deal which released captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Shalit was seized inside Israel near the southern Gaza Strip border by a coalition of Palestinian paramilitary groups, including Hamas, who had crossed the border through a tunnel near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. On 10 July 2006, Mashal stated Shalit was a prisoner of war and demanded a prisoner swap for his release which Israel refused.
On 18 June 2008, Israel announced a bilateral ceasefire with Hamas which began formally on 19 June 2008. The agreement was reached after talks between the two camps were conducted with Egyptian mediators in Cairo. As part of the ceasefire, Israel agreed to resume limited commercial shipping across its border with Gaza, barring any breakdown of the tentative peace deal, and according to one Israeli security source, negotiations on the release of Shalit were expected to resume. However, on 29 July 2008, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas voiced his strong opposition to the release of 40 Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament in exchange for Shalit. On 2 October 2009, after the swap of 20 Palestinian prisoners for a proof-of-life video, Mashal vowed to capture more soldiers in order to secure the release of more Palestinian prisoners.
In October 2011, Shalit was released and handed over to Israel in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.
Exile from Syria
In February 2012, as the Syrian civil war progressed, Mashal left Syria and returned to Qatar. Hamas distanced itself from the Syrian government and closed its offices in Damascus. Soon after, Mashal announced his support for the Syrian opposition, prompting Syrian state TV to issue a "withering attack" on him.
Tour of the Gaza Strip
In December 2012, following the eight-day conflict between Israel and Hamas and the negotiated truce, Mashal visited Gaza for the first time, beginning a four-day-long visit to the territory, for the 25th anniversary of Hamas's founding.
Upon arriving at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, Mashal prostrated himself on the ground in prayer, and was moved to tears by his reception. Mashal called his visit his "third birth" and wished for a fourth birth: "The first was my natural birth. The second was when I recovered from the poisoning. I ask God that my fourth birth will be the day we liberate all of Palestine." He told the cheering crowds, "We politicians are in debt to the people of Gaza." Traveling through Gaza City on the first day of his tour, Mashal visited the home of Yassin, as well as the home of Ahmed Jabari, the deputy chief of Hamas's military wing, who was assassinated at the start of the Israeli offensive in the previous month.
Addressing tens of thousands of attendees of Hamas's 25th anniversary in Gaza City's Katiba Square, Mashal reiterated his movement's refusal to concede any part of historical Palestine, stating "Palestine from the river to the sea, from the north to the south, is our land and we will never give up one inch." However, he also lent support to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' successful initiative for international recognition of the State of Palestine at the United Nations, adding his belief that diplomacy helped the Palestinian cause, but was needed in conjunction with "resistance." At the conclusion of his visit Mashal stressed that Palestinian reconciliation was critical, stating that "Gaza and the West Bank are two dear parts of the greater Palestinian homeland."
After his appearance at a congress of the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP), the U.S. was concerned about the relations between the party and the Hamas.
Retirement
Mashal resigned as chairman of the politburo in 2017 and was succeeded by Ismail Haniyeh, a Gaza strip resident and leader of the Hamas-dominated Gaza strip government. The handover marked a transfer of power from Hamas leaders living abroad to those living in Gaza. Just prior to the handover, Mashal presented the 2017 Hamas charter in Doha, in an effort to seal his legacy and commit those coming after him to the same policies.
On 3 September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against Mashal for allegedly orchestrating the 7 October attack on Israel, along with other senior Hamas officials. The charges, which were filed under seal in February 2024, include conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals.
Views
Mashal believes that U.S. Middle East policy is hypocritical and not about democracy. The U.S. has no problem with a dictator that supports the U.S., but a democratic leader that is against it is treated like an enemy, he argues.
Hamas
He views the goal of Hamas to be to "end the Zionist occupation; to liberate the land and the holy places; to reclaim Palestinian rights; to secure the return the refugees to their nation, lands, and homes; and to reclaim Jerusalem." Mashal wants the future Palestinian state to be one that "is open to the world, far from fanaticism, and one that promotes tolerance and accepts all."
Peace with Israel
Mashal believes that peace with Israel requires two things: that the Palestinian refugees that fled from, or were expelled by, Israeli forces in the 1948 in which Israel was established are allowed to return and that Israel withdraws from the territories it occupied in the 1967 war. Israel has said it would never agree to let the refugees return.
Yasser Arafat
Mashal was a vocal critic of the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, often refusing to follow directives issued by the PA regarding ceasefires with Israel.
Gaza blockade
Mashal believed that by blockading Gaza, Israel hoped to increase the suffering of the population so that they would turn against Hamas. He rejected the Israeli claim that the blockade was necessary for security reasons. He contended that the blockade was in violation of international law.
Award and honour
In 2010, the British New Statesman magazine listed Khaled Mashal at number 18 in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".
Personal life
Mashal married to Amal Saleh Al-Boureni in 1980 or 1981 and is the father of three daughters and four sons. Currently, he lived in Qatar, where he had moved in 2012.
See also
In Spanish: Jaled Meshal para niños
- List of leaders of Hamas
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