Jamal Abu Al-Hija is a Palestinian prisoner sentenced to nine life sentences. He was born in Jenin camp in 1959 to a family displaced from the occupied city of Haifa. The Israeli occupation arrested him in 2022 and charged him with killing Israelis in commando operations and leading the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
In his youth, he engaged in advocacy and social work before joining the armed resistance and assuming command of the Al-Qassam Brigades in the northern West Bank, which cost him the amputation of his hand following armed confrontations with the occupation and then his arrest.
His children and wife were subjected to arrest and persecution, and his house was bombed several times. The occupation refused to release him in the Wafa al-Ahrar deal in 2011 because of the strength of his advocacy speech, his influence on young people, and his encouragement of resistance.
Birth and upbringing
Jamal Abdel Salam Abu Al-Haija was born on November 25, 1959 in the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp. His family was displaced from the village of “Ain Hod” in the Haifa District following the Nakba in 1948 to a camp in Jenin.
He was influenced by his father, Sheikh Abdul Salam Abu Al-Hija, who was a muezzin and imam of the camp’s mosque. The son followed in his father’s footsteps and became involved in the call early and devoted his efforts to social work and supporting the resistance. His house was known for receiving and sheltering fighters from Jenin and from all the cities of the West Bank.
He is married to Asmaa Muhammad Sabaana and has 6 children, 4 boys: Abdul Salam, Imad, Asim, and Hamza, and 2 girls, Banan and Sajida. They all followed their father’s example in defending the prisoners’ cause and resisting the occupation.
Study and scientific training
He received his basic education in a school of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and his secondary education in Jenin High School, and graduated with distinction.
He joined the Arab College for Teacher Education in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in 1980, where he obtained a diploma in Islamic education in 1982.
Professional life
After graduating from the College of Teacher Education in Jordan, he worked as a teacher in Yemen between 1982 and 1984, and from there he headed to Saudi Arabia to practice the same profession, then he resided for a short period in Kuwait before returning to Jenin in 1990.
In Jenin, he worked in the Zakat and Charity Committee, whose mission was to care for orphans, provide educational aid and supplies, renovate homes, and purchase medicines. He also served as director of the Holy Quran memorization centers in the same governorate.
Experience advocacy and resistance
Jamal Abu Al-Haija joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan in 1979, and studied under one of its leaders, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, and participated in its advocacy, intellectual, social, and institutional activities.
At the end of the 1980s, Sheikh Azzam issued a call to Palestinian youth to return to their country to defend it and confront the practices of the occupation. This call was accompanied by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s announcement of the establishment of the Hamas movement.
Jamal Abu Al-Hija was one of the first to respond to this call. He returned to his hometown of Jenin in 1990 in the midst of the first Intifada (1987-1993) and joined the Hamas movement and worked as its spokesman and coordinator in the National and Islamic Forces Committee during that period.
He was one of the well-known preacher figures in the West Bank, and young people gathered around his influential preaching speech. His house was also open to receive families of prisoners and shelter fighters.
He became one of the leaders of the Hamas movement in the northern West Bank, and was a member of the support committee inside the Jenin camp in 1996, a body established to demand the rights of the camp residents and improve the services provided to them.
He assumed command of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the northern West Bank, and participated in the confrontations of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), during which he was injured several times.
He supervised the implementation of a number of commando operations for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, including:
- Sbarro restaurant operation in Jerusalem
This operation was carried out by the martyr Izz al-Din al-Masri (24 years old) in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001. He detonated his explosive belt inside the restaurant, killing 20 Israelis and wounding 150. The operation came in response to the assassination of Qassam leaders Jamal Mansour and Jamal. Saleem in Nablus.
It was carried out by martyr Muhammad Shaker Habeshi (50 years old) in the Nahariya settlement on September 9, 2001. Habeshi blew himself up in a commercial store near the train station, resulting in the death of 5 Israelis and the wounding of about 40 others with various injuries.
- Matza restaurant operation in Haifa
This operation was carried out by the martyr Shadi Zakaria al-Toubasi (23 years old) on March 31, 2002, in response to the occupation massacres in the city of Ramallah. Shadi blew himself up in the “Matsa” restaurant near the “Grand Canyon” shopping center in the heart of the city of Haifa, which led to 20 Israelis were killed and 35 others were wounded.
- Bus operation in Safed
It was carried out by martyrdom martyr Jihad Hamadeh (24 years old) on August 4, 2022. Jihad blew himself up inside an Israeli bus at the Meron Junction in the city of Safed, killing 14 Israelis and wounding 62. The operation was carried out in response to the Daraj neighborhood massacre, which aimed to assassinate the first leader. For the Al-Qassam Brigades, Sheikh Salah Shehadeh.
Jamal Abu Al-Hija was one of the leaders of the battle to defend Jenin camp in 2002, which took place during the occupation forces’ invasion of the cities of the West Bank. Israel put his name on the assassination list, a list that American intelligence handed over to the Palestinian Authority.
The occupation forces attempted to assassinate him after besieging him in Jenin in March 2002, but their operation failed. During this confrontation, he was injured by an explosive bullet in his left hand, and shrapnel was distributed throughout his body, so the doctors decided to amputate his hand.
He remained pursued by the occupation until he was arrested in an operation carried out by a special Israeli unit on August 26, 2002, months after he was injured in the hand and days after the Safed martyrdom operation.
Arrest and prison life
The Israeli occupation arrested him 5 times since his return to Jenin, and he was not spared from being pursued by the Palestinian Authority, as he was arrested in 1996 for 6 months, and the agencies continued to pursue him after his release for months on the grounds that he was harboring fighters.
The first time the occupation arrested him was on October 11, 1992, and he was released after 18 days of investigation. Then he was arrested again on January 29, 1993, and released on May 17, then he was arrested on September 17, 1995. He was released on December 14, and arrested on April 12, 1998 for interrogation to find out information about the whereabouts of the martyr Adel Awadallah. He was released on July 20, 1999.
On August 26, 2002, the occupation forces arrested him in a special operation after surrounding him in a house. A military court sentenced him to 9 life imprisonment on charges of supervising the implementation of commando operations against Israelis, in addition to 20 years on charges of leading the Qassam Brigades.
The occupation placed him on the list of dangerous prisoners, and he was tortured for two months in prison before being transferred to solitary confinement, where he spent about 10 years.
He participated in the dignity strike that prisoners waged in 2012 and lasted 28 days, during which his health condition deteriorated and he was left without treatment. With the end of the strike, his years of solitary confinement ended.
He was active in the discussions and dialogues that preceded the establishment of the leadership of the imprisoned Hamas movement. He was a member of the founding body, then a member of the supreme leadership body of Hamas prisoners in prisons for several organizational sessions.
He was transferred between several prisons, including Raymond Prison, Eshel Prison, Ashkelon Prison, Gilboa, and others.
During his imprisonment, he was subjected to harassment and difficult moments, as the occupation deprived him of family visits under the pretext of a security ban. His father, sister, and brother died while he was in prison, his children were arrested several times, and his wife fell ill with cancer.
Targeting and persecuting his family
Throughout his imprisonment, members of Sheikh Abu Al-Haija’s family were subjected to persecution, harassment, arrest, and denial of travel for treatment by the Israeli occupation and the authorities, and the family’s home was bombed and burned several times.
The occupation arrested his wife, Asmaa, in 2003. She spent 9 months in administrative detention. She was also prevented from traveling for treatment abroad after she was diagnosed with cancer.
His eldest son, Abdul Salam, was arrested some time before his father was arrested, when his son was 17 years old. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison, then he was arrested intermittently for 3 and a half years.
As for his son Assem, the occupation chased him in 2006 for 4 months and was arrested for nearly 3 years. His daughter Banan was also arrested for 23 days in 2007 and interrogated at the Al-Jalama Center. His son, Imad al-Din, was arrested several times, as was his younger son, Hamza, who was arrested in 2011.
Sheikh Jamal submitted a request to the Israeli court in 2008 to meet with his two sons, Abdul Salam, who was serving a 7-year sentence, and his son, Asim, who was in administrative detention, but the court refused to authorize this meeting.
In 2015, after his deportation to Beersheba prison, Sheikh Jamal was able to meet two of his sons, Imad, who was serving a two-year prison sentence, and Asem, who was sentenced to a year and a half. This was the first meeting between the father and his children, 13 years after his arrest.
His youngest son, “Hamza,” a leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank, was martyred during a clash with occupation soldiers in March 2014, after a life full of persecution and arrest by the occupation and by the security services of the Palestinian Authority.
His political positions
Sheikh Jamal Abu Al-Hija believes that the Palestinian cause is sacred and rejects any concession on the principles of the Palestinian cause. He also defends dialogue between all Palestinian factions.
He believes that the series of negotiations led by the Palestinian Authority is absurd, and has repeatedly called on it to give up its control over the political decision, return to the Palestinian people, and implement the national agreements signed with the Palestinian factions.
The Sheikh does not see any benefit in negotiations while the Palestinian people are suffering under the yoke of the occupation. He considers that the concessions made by the Palestinian Authority since the Oslo Accords (1993) prompted the occupation and the United States to take further measures with the aim of liquidating the Palestinian cause. He believes that the liberation of Palestine passes through resistance and the cooperation of loyal people. Children of the Palestinian people and the Islamic nation.
He describes security coordination with the occupation as a national crime against the Palestinian people, as he believes that coordination and political arrest sowed division and hatred in Palestinian society, and made a part of the people carry out the occupation’s mission under various pretexts.