Hussam Badran

One of the senior figures in Hamas’s leadership abroad, a member of the organization’s Political Bureau, and the head of Hamas’s military wing in the northern West Bank during the Second Intifada. Responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in attacks, and behind the planning of a series of deadly suicide bombings, including the attacks on the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv, the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, the Park Hotel in Netanya, the Matzah restaurant in Haifa, the Nahariya train station, a bus in Emmanuel, and the assault on the settlement of Hamra. On April 18, 2002, he was captured in the Nablus area by security forces in a complex operation that included ground troops, fighter jets and helicopters. While incarcerated in an Israeli prison he wrote a book titled “The Northern Brigade: First to Paradise”, in which he detailed Hamas’s activity against Israelis in the northern West Bank. He recommended that Hamas operatives learn Hebrew and seek to influence Israel's public opinion with precise propaganda warning of a decline in their standard of living and economic prospects, thereby widening rifts within their ranks and deepening ethnic and class divisions. He was released from prison in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit deal, deported to Egypt and from there relocated to Qatar.