Birth: NULL/NULL/1933 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in Gaza on 28 Dec. 1933; Chairman of the Khatabah (Oratory) Committee in Imam Al-Shafi’i School in 1946; Pres. of the Student Union in Gaza in 1951 and 1952; joined the Faculty of Law at Cairo University in May 1955 and received a Graduate Diploma in 1957; served as Sec.-Gen. of the Palestinian Students’ League in Cairo from 1954-55; early recruit to the Muslim Brotherhood; had a leading role in organizing the Popular Resistance Front to oppose Israeli occupation of Gaza in the course of the Suez Campaign and the Tripartite Invasion to Egypt (1956-57); earned an MA in Political Economy from Cairo University in 1958; left the Muslim Brotherhood to join Fateh in the late 1950s; Prosecutor in Kuwait until Sept. 1960; teacher of criminal investigation for the Police Dept. in Kuwait until 1975; helped building a support base for Fateh in Kuwait; Fateh Central Committee from 1968-71; became senior Fateh representative in the Gulf; remained Fateh member despite strong disagreements with Arafat; appointed PNC deputy speaker from 1969; speaker of the PNC since 1994; swore in Yasser Arafat as first elected President of the PA on 12 Feb. 1996; read the concluding statement of the PLO Central Council meeting in Gaza in Feb. 2000, announcing the decision to declare the independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital that year as a natural right of the Palestinian people; in addition to his political and legal work, he also writes poetry.
