Suhail al-Hindi

Suhail Ahmad Hassan al-Hindi is a senior member of the Hamas movement and a former senior UNRWA official. He was born on July 4, 1964, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, to a Palestinian family originally from al-Majdal in the Gaza district. He earned a diploma from the UNRWA Teachers Institute in Ramallah in 1984, and a bachelor’s degree in teacher training from Al-Azhar University in Gaza in 1993. He began working as a teacher for UNRWA in 1988 and was active in the student movement and in the labor unions representing UNRWA employees. Over the years, he held several positions, including Head of the Teachers Sector (2003), Chairman of the UNRWA Employees Union (2006–2016), and Chairman of the General Conference of Employees’ Unions across UNRWA’s five fields (2014). He joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine in 1981 and was involved in the founding of the Hamas movement in 1987. He was arrested by Israel from 1989 to 1990 and again in 1992. In 2006, he was appointed to serve as a member of the Political Bureau of the Hamas movement. He also served as Chairman of the Administrative Body in the North (2012–2015), and as Chairman of the Return Marches and Breaking the Siege Committee within the Political Bureau (2018). His home was bombed in an air force strike in 2014, and in 2016 he was dismissed from UNRWA.