The man Israel is looking for right now – VG

Also on Thursday, the Israeli army made unremitting efforts to eliminate Hamas leaders at various levels in Gaza.

Ismail Haniyeh’s house was said to have been hit by an Israeli missile on Thursday, but it was said that it was not in the house. Once again, this may indicate that Haniyeh again escaped an Israeli attack.

Attacks between Israel and Palestine continued on Thursday in and near Gaza.

At the top of the kill list

There is one person at the top of the IDF’s killing list:

The man who has been central to Hamas since the establishment of the Islamic Organization in 1988, Ismail Haniyeh. In 2018, the Hamas leader was placed on the US terror list.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on Israeli television and announced that the Israeli army had killed ten senior Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniyeh was not on that list.

Since becoming prime minister in the first Hamas government in Gaza in 2006, he has been under Israeli control. Among the Hamas leaders Israel has killed in the past twenty years, Ismail Haniyeh is considered by many to be more moderate than his colleagues in leadership.

It would be more correct to say that Haniyeh is behaving more tactically, as Yasser Arafat has often shown. The PLO chief did not say yes or no, but he expressed himself in a way that there was no doubt about what he meant, says a Norwegian diplomat who met Ismail Haniyeh on several occasions.

The leaders of Hamas, political and military, were eliminated one by one by Israel. Ismail Haniyeh has always been in the background. He knew he was weak. In 2019, his office in Gaza was hit by an Israeli missile. The same thing happened in 2006. In no case was the Hamas leader in the office building.

He was rarely interviewed by the Western press. Press releases and official statements are the way Haniyeh has acted against the outside world. VG previously interviewed people in the Hamas leadership, but was never successful in persuading Ismail Haniyeh to speak.

In 2020, he publicly announced and warned about President Donald Trump’s peace plan. Something that wasn’t seen as exciting.

This is how the Hamas leader began

Ismail Haniyeh was part of the youth wing of the Islamist movement that founded Hamas in 1988.. He was very close and was deeply influenced by the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

The spiritual leader was killed in an Israeli helicopter attack in 2003, a great loss for Hamas and for Ismail Haniyeh personally. Three years ago, VG met the spiritual leader in his Gaza office.

When the Palestinians elected the Hamas government in the first elections in 2006, it happened because people were frustrated and desperate with the Fatah movement led by Yasser Arafat, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. People no longer believed in the PLO handling of the peace process and saw that Management corruption spread and became larger.

Western countries responded by boycotting what few doubted was a legally elected government. The perception was that the Palestinians had chosen a terrorist movement to lead them.

At that time, Norway was heavily involved in political events in Gaza and the West Bank through its role in leading the donor group for Palestine, AHLC.

The Hamas government boycott has been implemented effectively. The residents were suffering immense, and in the end, Prime Minister Haniyeh realized that conditions would be worse for the Palestinians. Hamas against the Western world was a losing battle.

Ishmael accepted that The formation of the Palestinian unity government. Norway has been strongly involved in this work, with Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store at its helm. Norway has not formally approved the Palestinian unity government, but Stor looked at it.

Ismail Haniyeh, along with de facto Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who was in exile in Syria, realized that the boycott had destroyed the economy.

Haniyeh visits the government, a number of Hamas members disappeared, and a technocrat entered with the economist who was educated in America Salam Fayyad | As Minister of Finance.

Norway’s role

At that time, talks were taking place between Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store, the leader of Hamas in exile Khaled Meshal And Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh signed.

Norway played a role, but it is important to emphasize that we have never agreed to the Palestinian unity government, but we are bound by it. Later, many European countries praised Norway for the role played by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, says the Norwegian diplomat who followed developments closely.

Ismail Haniyeh, 59, was born in Gaza and educated by many Established United Nations schools for refugee children in Gaza. He majored in Arabic literature at Gaza University. The family comes from a Palestinian village that was located in the Israeli city before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 Ashkelon Is today. Not far from the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza.