Al Qassam website - “A strong-willed man, an uncompromising, influential, a great thinker, and an inspiring leader”, this is how his companions would describe him. As for the Israeli occupation leaders, they considered him “an ideological nuclear weapon who developed and co-established the political and military nucleus of Hamas.”

Birth of a Strategist

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Maqadma was born in 1950 in Beit Daras, to which his family had emigrated after they had been expelled by Israeli invading forces from their original town of Yibna, southwest of occupied Ramla. Al-Maqadma has lived in Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip. 

After he had passed the general Secondary School examinations with flying colors, he traveled to the Arab Republic of Egypt to pursue his studies where he was accepted to join the Faculty of Dentistry. Following his graduation, he moved back to the Gaza Enclave refugee camp of Al-Bureij, where he got married and became a father of 7.

Dr. Al-Maqadma has worked as a dentist at Shifa Hospital in Gaza, then took courses in radiography and became a radiologist. 

Dawa Activities

Al-Maqadma joined the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood in his early years of youth, and became one of its leaders, he was a close companion to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader and founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

Dr. Al-Maqadma has authored several books and paper studies on security and other subjects while inside and outside Israeli occupation jails, such as “Feature of the Liberation of Palestine”, and “Palestine’s Demography and Conflict”.

Military Action

Al-Maqadma was a staunch opponent of the Oslo Accords, and he believed that any peace agreement with the Zionist Israeli occupation would eventually lead to the killing of all Palestinians and break down Palestinians’ strenuous efforts to liberate their lands and end the Israeli occupation. 

Al-Maqadma, accompanied by a number of leaders, established the first nucleus of the Hamas’ Military Wing (Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades), and took over the task of military supply. In 1984, he was detained for the first time on the grounds that he had been involved in supplying Palestinian freedom fighters with weapons, and establishing a military movement in Gaza. He was subsequently sentenced to eight years, and after his release, he was re-detained and sentenced to two years.

Honor Certificate

On Saturday morning, March 8, 2003, the Zionist occupation forces assassinated Dr. Al-Maqadma, Abu Ahmed, as the occupation warplanes fired five fatal missiles at his car, which was traveling in Gaza City, martyring him and three of his mates, awarding them honor certificates, and injuring a number of passers-by and school students.

The assassination of Ibrahim al Maqadma and three of his companions brought tens of thousands of angry Palestinians into the streets of the Gaza Strip and a vow from Hamas to exact revenge on Israeli occupying leaders.