Birth: NULL/NULL/1959 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in Kobar, near Ramallah, on 6 June 1959; joined Fateh at the age of 15; was among the founders of the Shabiba (Fateh Youth) in the West Bank in the mid-1970s; from 1978, spent 4½ years in Israeli prisons after being charged with membership in then “banned” Fateh; studied at Birzeit University from 1983; head of Shabiba and Pres. of the Student Council at Birzeit University in the early 1980s; was arrested in Sept. 1985, placed under administrative detention for six months and then deported by Israel in May 1987 to Jordan; played a role in the organizing the first Intifada from his Amman exile; became elected member of the Fateh Revolutionary Council in Aug. 1989; acted as liaison officer between the outside PLO and inside Fateh; independent member of the PLO Central Council; initial supporter of the Oslo process; was allowed to return to the West Bank in April 1994; graduated with a BA in History and Political Science in 1994 (Birzeit University had made a special arrangement for him while in exile: he took courses in Jordan to gain the required credit hours and then attended the graduation ceremony at Birzeit, where the first graduations took place in 1994 after years of closures); was delegated by Faisal Husseini to serve as Sec.-Gen. of the Fateh Higher Committee in the West Bank; won a seat as an independent (Ramallah constituency) in the Jan. 1996 elections; continued his studies at Birzeit, receiving an MA in International Relations in 1998; participated and signed the Copenhagen Accord (“The International Alliance for Arab-Israeli Peace”) for a two-state solution in 1997; submitted a motion of no-confidence in the Executive in the PLC in the May 1997 budgetary misuse affair; became increasingly critical of Oslo, especially in face of Israel’s ongoing settlement policy; led massive demonstrations refocusing national attention on the basic objective of ending the occupation; became the major local leader in the second Intifada (since Sept. 2000), organizing resistance in the belief that peace cannot be achieved with occupation; survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Aug. 2001; was arrested by the Israeli army in Ramallah on 15 April 2002 and is detained since then; on 6 June 2004 sentenced to five successive life imprisonments plus 40 years for being involved with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades; following the passing away of Pres. Yasser Arafat, decided to run as a candidate in the PA elections, challenging an earlier Fateh agreement to nominate former PM Mahmoud Abbas as sole Fateh representative (a move that was denounced by the Fateh Central Committee but welcomed among certain Fateh youth members), but withdrew his candidacy on 12 Dec. 2004; was elected PLC member (no. 1 on the Fateh list) in the 2006 elections, while still imprisoned.
