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Hatem Qafisha

Palestinian politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ5681301
Source-derived summary

Hatem Qafisha (Arabic: حاتم قفيشة; born 1963) is a Palestinian politician. He is a current member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) representing Hebron Governorate. He is affiliated with the Hamas movement.

Biography

Qafisha was one of over 400 Hamas activists deported by Israel to Southern Lebanon in December 1992 for his membership in the organization. When he returned to the West Bank in 1993, he recorded his time in exile in a series of articles in the Al-Quds newspaper. He intended to publish a memoir, but Israeli prison guards confiscated his writings.

He campaigned for a seat in the PLC from his prison cell and was elected in January 2006. On November 6, 2007, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized Qafisha from his home in Hebron as a part of series of arrests of Hamas members following the capturing of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants. He was held in administrative detention in the Ketziot prison in the Negev Desert until his release on November 1, 2009. While in prison, Qafisha reportedly completed a PhD through correspondence courses.

Editorial summary

“Hatem Qafisha” enters the record as palestinian politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hatem, Qafisha and Palestinian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1963, 1992, 1993, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1963-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Hatem, Qafisha and Palestinian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Hatem Qafisha” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hatem, Qafisha and Palestinian provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5681301. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1992, 1993 and 2006.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hatem Qafisha”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hatem Qafisha primary sources, Hatem Qafisha archive and Hatem research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hatem Qafisha”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Hatem Qafisha” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.