Jamila Abdallah Taha al-Shanti, one of the senior leaders of the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza on 19 October 19, 2023.
The 68-year-old who was born in the Jabalia refugee camp in 1957, breathed her last after a bombing by Israeli aircraft at dawn on her home in Gaza.
Jamila, the first female political bureau member of Hamas, had previously served as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Jamila who earned a PhD in English language from Ain Shams University in Egypt in 1980, is the widow of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, one of the legendary figures of the Palestinian resistance and a co-founder of Hamas. Rantisi was assassinated by Israel in April 2004.
She became affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood during her university studies at Ain Shams University in Egypt in 1977. Subsequently, she returned to the Gaza Strip in 1990 to engage in Hamas’ organizational activities and also served as a faculty member at the Islamic University in Gaza.
She was also the founder of Hamas’ women’s wing.
The Palestinian leader gained prominence on 3 November 2006, when she led a women’s march that successfully broke a siege imposed by the Israeli occupation army on a mosque in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Three days later, her house was bombed by Israeli planes, resulting in the deaths of her sister-in-law, Nahla Al-Shanti, and two other Palestinians.
In 2013, Jamila al-Shanti was appointed as the Minister of Women in the Hamas government that governed the Gaza Strip at the time.
In 2021, shortly after her election as a member of the Hamas political bureau, she was quoted by the Palestinian Al-Aqsa TV channel as saying, “The presence of women in the Hamas leadership shall prove to be a valuable contribution to the movement’s future. As a women’s movement within Palestine, we haven’t held official positions within the Hamas political bureau before. However, we have actively participated in the organization and decision-making processes in the preceding period.”
