Birth: 7/6/1926 Death:30/9/2016
Born in the Old City of Jerusalem on 7 June 1926; was educated at Al-Bakriyah and Al-Rashidiyah Schools in Jerusalem, graduating in 1944; enrolled at the AUB to study Medicine; joined the ANM and soon became an active member; during the same period joined the Berlitz Institute for Hebrew Language in Jerusalem and the Hapoel Club in the Bukhari neighborhood of Jerusalem (those contacts stopped after the events of 1947/48); graduated from the AUB in 1948; returned to Jerusalem and joined Al-Jihad Al-Muqaddas forces; volunteered in the emergency treatment of those wounded in Nakba clashes; after the war, continued his education in Damascus University graduating as a Physical Doctor in 1954; returned and worked in the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem, then with Palestinian refugees through UNRWA in Irbid, Jordan; moved to Jericho to work in association with the ANM on refugee issues; was imprisoned for a while by Jordanian authorities; upon his release opened a private clinic in Jerusalem’s Old City near the St. John’s Hospice in 1957; co-founded Al-Maqassed Society in 1954, then joined the Red Crescent Society in the Old City of Jerusalem; also worked in the Spafford Children’s Hospital in Jerusalem in 1959; was elected Chairman of the Union of Charitable Societies, serving as its Chairman for many years; co-founder of Al-Maqassed Hospital in 1966; among the founders of the Arab Graduates’ Club, for which he obtained an official license in 1966; was also involved in a project dealing with combating illiteracy, co-founded a society for psycho-therapy, worked in a home for the Elderly in Bethany, and assisted political prisoners; served as Vice-Pres. of the Red Crescent Society’s Exec. Committee and of the Beit Al-Rahma Home for the Elderly; was a Board of Trustees member of the Arab Institute in Abu Dis, which gradually developed into the College for Science and Technology; in 1982, was placed under town arrest for six months by the Israeli authorities; among the founders of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and member of its Board of Trustees; was accused by Israeli authorities of “funding the [first] Intifada” and sentenced for two months of prison in 1988; retired in 1991, but continued working in his private clinic in the Old City of Jerusalem, as doctor of Dar Al-Tifl School, and directs the Social Research Center in Wadi Al-Joz, Jerusalem until his retirement in 2005; was arrested in the latter position by Israeli forces in 2003. He died on September 30th, 2016.
