Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Haidar Muhyiddin Darwish Abd
al-Shafi (June 10, 1919 - September 24, 2007), Palestinian physician and
politician; He headed the Palestinian negotiating delegation at the Madrid
Peace Conference. Be convinced that Israel does not want peace.
his life
He was born and lived in the Gaza
Strip and received his primary education there. Then he was sent to the Arab
College in Jerusalem to pursue his secondary studies. After graduating from it
in 1936, he went to Lebanon and joined the American University in Beirut, where
he studied medicine and surgery. During his studies at the university, he got
acquainted with the movement of Arab nationalists, in which he saw the light,
and joined its ranks for some time. He graduated as a doctor in 1943, and then
went to work in the city of Jaffa, where he was employed in the municipal hospital
of the British Mandate Authority, and spent the years of World War II in
several places inside Palestine and Transjordan. After the end of the war, he
left the army and opened a private clinic for himself in the Gaza Strip and
participated in the establishment of the Palestinian Medical Association in
1945. He left for the United States and specialized in general surgery in a
major hospital in Dayton, Ohio, and in 1954 he returned to the Gaza Strip and
had been placed under Egyptian administration. . He worked as a surgeon at Tal
al-Zuhur Hospital of the Egyptian administration. During the tripartite
aggression against Egypt in 1956, Israel occupied the Strip and installed a
municipal council in Gaza City to manage its affairs and chose it among its members,
but refused to participate in it.
In 1960 he returned to his private
medical practice. But he was chosen in 1962 as head of the legislative
authority for the sector until 1964, when he participated in the first
Palestinian national conference held that year in Jerusalem, the conference in
which the Palestine Liberation Organization was established under the
presidency of Ahmed Al-Shugairi.
Between 1964 and 1965 he served as a
member of the Executive Committee of the Liberation Organization, and since
then, thanks to his national medical and political activities, he has
strengthened his popular positions in his political stronghold and his hometown
of Gaza, and by 1966 he became the most prominent leader in the Strip.
After Israel occupied Gaza for the
second time in 1967, he worked as a volunteer doctor at Al-Shifa Hospital in
the Strip, and was arrested by the Israeli authorities for some time on charges
of supporting the policies of Ahmed Al-Shugairi, the leader and founder of the
Palestine Liberation Organization. After his release, he continued to defy the
Israeli authorities, refusing any form of cooperation with them, so they exiled
him, on direct orders from Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, to Nakhl (Sinai) in
the middle of the Sinai Peninsula for three months, and then to Lebanon on
September 12, 1970 with five national leaders. This was in response to the
PFLP's hijacking of 3 civilian planes, which were later blown up in the
Jordanian desert.
In 1972, he founded and managed the
Palestine Red Crescent Society in the Gaza Strip, making it a theater for
medical aid and social and cultural activities. He participated in the joint
Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference, which was held
in 1991, after which he was entrusted with the task of heading the Palestinian
negotiating delegation in the Washington talks for a period of 22 months during
1992 and 1993 until he resigned from the delegation in April 1993 due to the
continuing dispute over the Israeli settlement complex. Which refused to settle
does not provide for their removal. After his appeal and acceptance to return
to the negotiating table, he resigned and withdrew again the following month.
He was elected a member of the
Palestinian Legislative Council after the Palestinian general elections in
1996, when he obtained 58,229 votes in the Gaza Governorate district,
representing the National Democratic Coalition. He was chosen to head the
political committee in the council. On March 30, 1998, he withdrew from the
Council on the grounds that it was impossible for the Council, given its
limited powers, to bring about any change for the better in the situation of
the Palestinians. He called for more democracy within the Palestinian National
Authority and the establishment of a national unity leadership that brings
together all factions and currents under its banner. He supported the second
Palestinian Intifada, considering it a natural, automatic rejection of ten
years of sterile negotiations with Israel, and that it exploited all
opportunities in de facto situations on the ground. He also questioned the
credibility of the US-backed road map.
Founded with Dr. Mustafa
Al-Barghouti, Professor Ibrahim Al-Daqqaq, and the late Dr. Edward Said and
five hundred Palestinian personalities, the Palestinian National Initiative
Movement in 2002, during which he assumed the mission of its Secretary-General.
It is a social and political movement that believes that national unity is the
safety valve protecting the struggle of the Palestinian people and their
legitimate rights in a just solution.
On January 15, 2004, Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat appointed him as head of the Committee for the Care of
Cemeteries in the Gaza Strip Governorates.
On August 28, 2006, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas appointed him as a member of the committee charged with
running the Gaza municipality.
his death
Haider Abdel Shafi passed away on
September 24, 2007 at the age of 88. He died leaving behind his wife, four of
his children, and seven of his grandchildren. His funeral was held, and the two
opponents participated in it, walking side by side with supporters of Fatah and
supporters of Hamas.
Achievements and Awards
Medals and honors
On April 8, 2007, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas awarded him the Palestinian Medal of Honor; “In
appreciation of his great role and distinguished giving in serving our
Palestinian people, to obtain their just national rights, and his role in the
struggle through the positions he occupied.”
On November 7, 2007, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas decided to name the Faculty of Dentistry at Al-Azhar
University in Gaza after the Faculty of Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi Dental Clinic.
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