Khaled Mashal

Khaled Meshaal was born in Silwad, when Palestine was occupied by Jordan, on May 28, 1956.

Till 1967, the young boy pursued his primary education from the 'Silwad Elementary School', after which the family shifted to Kuwait, owing to monetary constraints.

In 1971, Khaled became a member of the 'Muslim Brotherhood', an Islamist Organization formed in Egypt.

He graduated in Physics from the 'Kuwait University', in 1978. The same year he was appointed as a teacher at the university.

In 1980, Meshaal formed the 'al-rabita al-islamiyya li talabat filastin' ('Islamic league for Palestinian Students'), and continued to work as a teacher in Kuwait for the next four years.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin co-established the Islamic resistance movement called 'Hamas', in 1987, which Meshaal joined and the latter started heading the branch in Kuwait. Khaled also served as a representative of the ‘Political Bureau of Hamas’ from the time of its formation.

After Iraq attacked Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1991, the bureaucrat shifted to Jordan, and began working for 'Hamas'. Five years later, he was appointed as the Chairman of the organization.

On September 25 1997, agents of the Israeli intelligence organization, 'Mossad', pretended to be tourists from Canada, and attempted to murder the ‘Hamas’ leader by spraying poison into his ears. This assassination attempt, carried out under the orders of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu failed, and the Israeli special agents were arrested.

This politician is most famous for being the leader of ‘Hamas’, an organization that has been fighting against Israel for quite some time, in an attempt to capture Jerusalem for Palestine. The organization has been deemed as “terrorist” by nations like Israel, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. It has been banned in Jordan, but is considered legal in places like Qatar, Iran and Russia.