(Among the believers are men true to what they promised Allah. Among them is he who has fulfilled his vow [to the death], and among them is he who awaits [his chance]. And they did not alter [the terms of their commitment] by any alteration.) (Al-Ahzab: 23).
The fearless knight dismounted from his horse after having fulfilled his trust, conveyed the message, and strived in the way of Allah as it should be strived. He said it and died upon it: "We will not recognize Israel." He was sincere to Allah, and Allah was sincere to him. It is the good end that Allah grants to His faithful, sincere, and loyal servants. It was the great reward for a man who had long dedicated his life, efforts, and time to serving his religion and the justice of his cause.
Ismail Haniyeh, the veteran political leader and head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), was born in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza in 1962. He descends from a Palestinian refugee family forcibly displaced from the village of Jura, near Ashkelon, during the Nakba events of 1948. He is the father of 13 children, three of whom were assassinated by the Israeli army in April 2024 in the Shati camp during the ongoing genocide.
Since 2019, he has been residing in Qatar, where he conducts his political activities. During the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, he acted as a negotiator in ceasefire talks and as a liaison with mediators in Qatar, Egypt, and Iran, his movement’s main ally.
"This blood will only strengthen our resolve," said Haniyeh last April when informed that the Israeli army had killed three of his children and four of his grandchildren in an airstrike on a car they were traveling in within the Gaza Strip. He was speaking about facing the Zionist genocide on Gaza, unaware that he would join his children and grandchildren three months later, not in Gaza like them, nor in Qatar where he resided, but in Iran, where he was attending the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in Tehran.
Today, the Zionist entity assassinated a man of Palestine’s men, as they had assassinated before him Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi, Saeed Siyam, Ismail Abu Shanab, Ibrahim al-Muqadma, Salah Shehadeh, Saleh al-Arouri, and others from the movement's leaders. But did the movement stop? Did its pulse cease? Did it fail to produce other leaders?
It is a movement born from the womb of suffering, whose men grew up behind bars, under the yoke of prison and jailers, tasting the bitterness of deprivation and loss, living lives of dispersion and displacement, witnessing the crimes of the Zionists against their people and nation. They took it upon themselves to steer the ship to safety, no matter the cost in blood and limbs, believing in their creed, convinced of their idea, insisting that "what was taken by force can only be regained by force." They trod the path of jihad and the roads of resistance with all their difficulties, knowing that its end would be one of the two good outcomes. Nevertheless, they did not retreat or falter, believing that when a leader falls, a thousand others rise to carry the banner and steer the ship, assured by the words of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him): "There will never cease to be a group from my Ummah manifest upon the truth, they will not be harmed by those who forsake them until Allah's Decree comes." They asked: "O Messenger of Allah, where are they?" He said: "In Jerusalem and its surroundings."
Yes, the Zionist entity, with international collusion and Arab subservience, killed the leader Haniyeh, a man history will not forget. They killed his spirit, but they will not realize that his ideas will never die, and his legacy will continue as a beacon celebrated by generations to come. History will remember a man who wrote with his blood and limbs the story of the Palestinian people, drew for them the map of liberation, lit for them the torch of their launch, and ignited the spark of resistance that will not end with his life.
Today, the grieving Palestinian people and their bereaved children, who face the enemy's oppression and its brutal war with their bare bodies amid the complete abandonment by their fellow Arabs, bid farewell to a man of truth who sacrificed his life for the bright Palestinian right, making his pure body a passage towards liberation. He knew that his soul would not be the last on the altar of freedom, but he remained steadfast in truth, unwavering, a model who believed in the strength of Palestinian justice and the righteousness of the cause, which needs limbs and blood as a cheap price for its worth.
O Abu al-Abed, sleep peacefully. For you, the mourners weep, and we testify that you completed the journey and fulfilled the promise and covenant. But it is the will of Allah and His law in His creation. The time of rest has come after the toil, and we ask Allah for steadfastness and strength after you. Your beloved people who loved you pledge to remain on the covenant and continue your path.
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