Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Hani Muhammad Saeed Al-Hassan was born in the depopulated village of Ijzim, in the district of occupied Haifa in 1938. He studied the primary stage in the schools of Haifa and Damascus, and the secondary stage at the Al-Ahliya Secondary School in Damascus, from which he obtained the general secondary certificate, and he obtained a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Germany.
Hassan grew up in a religious and militant family, and became involved in political work at an early stage of his life. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood, received military training within its ranks, established the secret Al-Aqsa Youth Group, and was active in West Germany in advocating for the Palestinian cause, especially among Palestinian and Arab students and workers. He also played a pivotal role in establishing a branch of the General Union of Palestinian Students there and forming the secret “Vanguards of the Returnees” organization. He was elected president of the General Union of Palestinian Students at its general conference held in Gaza in 1963. He joined the Fatah movement through Abu Jihad in 1963, and became the link between its leadership and its groups in Europe between (1963-1967), and remained its official in West Germany until 1967.
He received a military course in China in 1967, and became a member of the Military Council of the Al-Asifa Forces between (1967-1970). He was appointed Secretary of the Jordan Region and Political Commissioner until 1969. He participated in establishing the first international seminar for Palestine in Algeria in 1969. He was one of the leaders of the Jerash region during the events of September 1970. He took command of the Al-Asifa Forces between (1972-1975). He became Deputy Commissioner of the Monitoring and Information Apparatus in the Fatah Movement in 1973. He accompanied Yasser Arafat on his trip to Tehran after the success of Khomeini's revolution. He was appointed the first representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Tehran in 1979. He became a member of the Central Committee of Fatah in 1980, Commissioner of the Department of Foreign Relations in it, and a member of the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He also represented the Palestine Liberation Organization in Amman until 1982.
Hassan was active in diplomatic work; he had a central role in the negotiations conducted by the American envoy Philip Habib with the PLO during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. He chaired some joint committees with several countries, including the Saudi-Palestinian Joint Committee and the Palestinian-French Committee between (1985-1991). He had a prominent role in the Jordanian-Palestinian agreement signed in 1985. He was re-elected as a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement in 1989, and became the head of the Foreign Relations Committee in the National Council between (1989-2004). He returned to Palestine in 1995 and served as political advisor to Yasser Arafat, his special envoy to more than one party, and a member of the crisis team in the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was appointed Minister of the Interior in the fifth government between (2000-2003), during which he supervised the unification of the security services into three agencies. He became a political advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas in 2005 and headed the Mobilization and Organization Office of Fatah between (2000-2007).
Hassan was known for criticizing the PLO at more than one point in its long history, including his criticism of its position in the Gulf Crisis of 1990, and his objection to its negotiating strategy and its outcomes, especially the Oslo Accords.
He died in Jordan following a stroke on July 6, 2012, and was buried in Ramallah.
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