Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Mohammed Abdel Khattab Al-Najjar was born in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, in 1927. He was married and had five sons and four daughters. He worked in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gaza Strip.
Al-Najjar joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1948 and participated in its activities. He was a contemporary of a number of Egyptian Brotherhood leaders who played a role in establishing Brotherhood branches in Palestine and participated in the fighting during the 1948 war, such as Muhammad Farghali, Kamil al-Sharif, Saeed Ramadan, and Abdul Hakim Abdeen. He was present during the period when the founder of the group, Imam Hassan al-Banna, visited Khan Yunis. He also worked with a number of the early Brotherhood members in the sector, such as Ahmed Farah Aqilan, Muhammad Abu Sardana, and Naji Hassan al-Saafin. His house was a meeting place for the group's leaders, where official meetings were held, including meetings of the group's Shura Council. Al-Najjar represented the Khan Yunis Governorate in the first administrative body of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip during the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century. He participated in restoring the group's activity in Palestine after the 1967 war and worked with many of its leaders, such as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. He was prominent in charitable and social work in the Gaza Strip and participated in the establishment of the Islamic Center in Gaza City in 1973. He established a branch in Khan Yunis in 1978 and the Islamic University in Gaza City in 1978. He also founded the Al-Rahma Charitable Society in 1993 and remained its chairman until his death. He contributed to the establishment of Dar Al-Salam Hospital in Khan Yunis in 1995. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Islamic University for ten years until his death. He supervised extensive projects related to sponsoring orphans, Quran memorization circles, and building mosques, including Halima Mosque and Al-Mustafa Mosque. He was one of the most prominent figures of reform in Khan Yunis.
Al-Najjar witnessed the birth of the Hamas movement, participated in planning and implementing its national activities, and his house became a refuge for some of the movement’s leaders and founders of the Qassam Brigades, including the general commander Mohammed Deif, the engineer Yahya Ayyash, and the commanders Ibrahim al-Maqadma and Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi, among others.
Al-Najjar suffered at the hands of the Egyptian authorities, who arrested him several times and subjected him to torture in their prisons. He was also arrested several times by the occupation authorities in the 1980s and 1990s and subjected to torture in their prisons.
He died on November 11, 2011, and was buried in the Al-Najjar cemetery in the Austrian area of Khan Yunis.
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