After eight years in office Palestinian Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haneyya announced stepping down from his chair voluntarily.
Haneyya was chosen as prime minister in 2006 at the age of 43; to be the youngest prime minister in Palestine. He left his office on Monday the 2nd of June 2014 paving the way for the new consensus government.
Haneyya was born in 1963 to a poor refugee family at the Shati refugee camp. He grew up in the camp and continued to live there with his wife and his 13 children even after he became Gaza premier.
In 1981 he joined the Islamic University of Gaza and in 1987 he graduated with a degree in Arabic literature.
While at university he joined the Islamic Student Bloc which is affiliated with Hamas. From 1984 to 1986 he was head of the students’ council.
Haneyya was arrested for three times by the Israeli occupation authorities. He was imprisoned for 18 days in 1987 and again in 1988 for six months.
In 1989 he was re-arrested and sentenced to three years in jail in connection with his role in the resistance. On his release in 1992 Haneyya was deported to Marj al-Zuhur in southern Lebanon for over a year along with more than 400 leaders from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Haneyya was elected as member in the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 and before that he served as the Secretary-General of the Board of Trustees of the Islamic University in Gaza.
He was also appointed as Academic Director of the Islamic University in Gaza.
Haneyya joined the Supreme Dialogue Committee of Hamas movement and was representative of his movement in the Follow-up Committee of the Intifada
In 1998 the year after late Sheikh Ahmad Yasin’s release from the Israeli occupation prison Haneyya became his office manager and aide.
His position within Hamas continued to strengthen. In the last internal elections of the Islamic Resistance Movement the movement’s leadership elected Haneyya as the deputy head of the Political Bureau.
The Hamas leader has been subjected to many assassination attempts by the Israeli occupation forces. In September 2003 he miraculously survived an Israeli air strike on a building where Hamas leaders including Sheikh Ahmad Yasin were meeting.
Fatah security apparatuses also attempted to assassinate him in 2007 at the Rafah crossing.
Haneyya’s positions have always reflected his support for the attempts to form the unity government. He tried to achieve reconciliation by all means while stressing his adherence to the Palestinian constants and resistance.
