The Assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin
In 1983, he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of possessing weapons and forming a military organization and participating in activities against the Zionist regime.
He was released in 1985 after serving 11 months in prison as part of a prisoner exchange between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Movement. The popular intifada that emerged in December 1987 was one of the intellectual results of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. In all meetings, he used to say that “we must continue the intifada until Israel leaves the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.” The decision to launch the Intifada coincided with the formation of the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas.
On October 16, 1991, a military court indicted him in nine clauses on charges of abducting and killing of Israeli soldiers, establishing Hamas, and establishing security and military organizations; he was finally sentenced to life sentence plus 15 years in prison.
He was released on Wednesday, November 2, 1997, in an agreement reached between Jordan and Israel in exchange for the release of two Mossad spies arrested during the assassination of Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau.
Sheikh Ahmad Yassin was martyred on Monday, March 22, 2004, at the age of 67, after his morning prayer while leaving a mosque where an Israeli army helicopter fired a missile at him.
This tragedy is also known as the Hay al-Sabr massacre.
France News Agency quoted Israeli radio that Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had personally monitored the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
Sheikh Ahmad Yassin came to Iran for six days on April 28, 1998, and met with Ayatollah Khamenei (Long may he live), the Supreme Leader of the Revolution. During that meeting, the Supreme Leader of the Revolution addressed him: “the Palestinian people are Muslims, and only those who speak in the name of Islam and want the dignity of Palestine are the true representatives of the Palestinian people, so those who have tried to humiliate Palestine have no right to speak in the name of the magnificence of Palestine.”
