CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Ismail Haniyeh

Hamas leader (1962–2025)

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ152378
Source-derived summary

Ismail Haniyeh (Arabic: إسماعيل هنية, romanized: Ismāʿīl Haniyyah, ; 29 January 1962 – 31 July 2024) was a Palestinian politician who served as third chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from May 2017 until his assassination in July 2024. He also served as the prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority from March 2006 until June 2014 and the first Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip from June 2007 until February 2017, where he was succeeded by Yahya Sinwar.

Haniyeh was born in the al-Shati refugee camp in the then Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip in 1962 or 1963, to parents who were expelled or fled from Al-Jura (now part of Ashkelon) during the 1948 Palestine war. He earned a bachelor's degree in Arabic literature from the Islamic University of Gaza in 1987, where he first became involved with Hamas, which was formed during the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation. His involvement led to his imprisonment for three short periods after participating in protests. After his release in 1992, he was exiled to Lebanon, returning a year later to become a dean at Gaza's Islamic University. Haniyeh was appointed to head a Hamas office in 1997 and subsequently rose in the ranks of the organization.

Haniyeh was head of the Hamas list that won the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, which campaigned on armed resistance against Israel, and so became Prime Minister of the State of Palestine. However, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007. Due to the then-ongoing Fatah–Hamas conflict, Haniyeh did not acknowledge Abbas' decree and continued to exercise prime ministerial authority in the Gaza Strip.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ismail Haniyeh” is hamas leader (1962–2025). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ismail, Haniyeh and Hamas, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1962, 2024, 2017, 2006—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1962-01-29, 1962, 1963-01-29, 1963-05-08—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Ismail, Haniyeh and Hamas is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “hamas leader (1962–2025)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q152378. VIAF identifies the subject as 255729056. The Library of Congress control number is n2012053229. 7 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 3 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1962, 2024, 2017 and 2006.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ismail Haniyeh”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ismail Haniyeh primary sources, Ismail Haniyeh archive and Ismail 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 “Ismail Haniyeh”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ismail Haniyeh” 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.