Al-Rantissi received his primary and preparatory education at UNRWA-run schools in Gaza. At this age, he also had to work to help provide for his family.
He completed his high school in 1965. Seven years later, he graduated from Alexandria University's medical school, where he also got a master's degree in pediatrics.
He first worked as a resident physician at Nasser hospital in 1976. He then worked as a lecturer in science, genetics and parasitology at the Islamic University of Gaza since its establishment in 1978.
Al-Rantissi held several posts in public service, including an administrative membership at Al-Mujamma Al-Islami (The Islamic Center), the Arab Medical Association, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Gaza.
Co-founding Hamas
During his time in Egypt, Rantissi joined the Muslim Brotherhood. Upon his return to the Gaza Strip, he served as head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Khan Younis. In December 1987, he had the honour to co-found Hamas, alongside Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.
Since the outbreak of the First Palestinian Intifada, he took part in the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation, for which he was jailed for several years in Israeli occupation prisons.
Following Yassin's assassination, al-Rantissi was elected as head of Hamas.
Cultural legacy
Despite being pediatrician and preoccupied with politics, al-Rantissi published several political and literary writings.
Besides his writings on his blog, al-Rantissi wrote several political columns for several Arabic newspapers.
During his imprisonment, he memorised the Holy Quran and wrote a number of epic poems, which advocated for steadfastness and resilience in the struggle against the Israeli occupation.
Detention and banishment
Al-Rantissi was first detained in 1983 for refusing to pay taxes to the Israeli occupation authorities.
He was detained on 15 January 1988 for 21 days, the first Islamic Movement leader to be detained following the outbreak of the Frist Palestinian Intifada in December 1987.
The third time he was detained took place on 4 February 1988 when he was incarcerated for two years and a half in Israeli occupation jails over his participation in anti-occupation activities.
Released on 4 September 1990, al-Rantissi was re-detained about three months later and was held under administrative detention for one year.
In late 1992, he was banished, alongside more than 400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad figures, to the Lebanese village of Marj al-Zuhur. With his good English, he became the main spokesman for the exiled who staged protests near the Lebanese border to compel the Israeli occupation to return them to their homeland.
Soon after his return to his homeland, Israeli occupation forces detained him and an Israeli court issued him a jail sentence. He was jailed until mid-1997.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) security services arrested him less than a year after his release from Israeli occupation prisons, but released him after 15 months when his mother passed away.
Later, he was re-arrested by the PA security services three times and was released following a hunger strike to protest his incarceration and after Israeli occupation warplanes bombed the prison where he was kept.
Assassination attempts
Al-Rantissi survived the first attempt on his life in 1992 when an Arabic-speaking man claiming to be an interpreter for a Japanese journalist put a booby-trapped bag in his tent in Marj al-Zuhur.
On 10 June 2003, he survived another assassination attempt when an Israeli occupation warplane targeted his car, killing his bodyguard, Mustafa Saleh, and a child, who was passing by on the street, and seriously injuring his son, Ahmad.
His death
"It's death, whether by killing or by cancer. Nothing will change. If by Apache [helicopter] or by a cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache," al-Rantissi said in a televised interview.
He was killed along with two of his bodyguards, Ahmad al-Ghurra and Akram Nassar, when an Israeli occupation military helicopter fired three missiles at his car in Al-Jalaa St. in Gaza City on 17 April 2004.
Nearly half a million Palestinians, including senior officials from Hamas and other Palestinian factions, attended his funeral in Gaza City.
Source: Hamas website
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