Clashes between Hamas and Israel have been continuing for days. One of the names we hear most during these conflicts is the Qassam Brigades, fully known as the Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigades.
Who are these brigades that started the Al Aqsa Flood Operation? When was it founded and how many people does it consist of? Where do their names come from?
The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades were established in 1992 as the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas to resist the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The name Qassam comes from the Syrian-born Palestinian leader Sheikh Izzeddin al-Qassam, who died in 1935 while fighting against British colonialism in Palestine.
Life of Izz al-Din al-Qasam
He was born in the village of Cebale in the town of Latakia, Syria. His family was extremely religious. His father, a village teacher, played a major role in the formation of his view of life. He left his village at the age of 14 and enrolled at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. He soon created his own circle. Later, al-Qassam returned to his village and started working as an imam in the village mosque. In his sermons, he stated that Islamic revival could only be achieved by returning to the roots and that imperialism was the greatest enemy. Qassam's fame gradually began to spread throughout Syria.
Izz ad-Din Abd al-Qadar ibn Mustafa ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassam (1881 or 19 December 1882 – 20 November 1935) was a Syrian Muslim preacher, and a leader in the nationalist struggles against British and French Mandatory rule in the Levant, and a militant opponent of Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s.
After Italy occupied Tripoli in 1911, he went to the region and fought with Ottoman troops against the Italians. He enlisted in the Ottoman army during World War I. Al-Qassam, who began to fight and organize the people to liberate Damascus from French occupation after the war, was sentenced to death in absentia. He had to leave Syria in 1922 and settled in a village near the city of Haifa, which was then in Palestinian territory.
He strongly opposed the acquisition or occupation of Palestinian lands by Jewish immigrants. He started teaching at an Islamic school in Haifa and joined the Young Muslim League. Here, by chance, he met Haji Amin al-Husseini, the father of Fatah, which led the Palestinian national war. However, he was far from his nationalist ideas. Years later, the movements led by Haji Amin and al-Qassam transformed into the Palestine Liberation Organization and HAMAS and continued to rival each other.
Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam established small military cells to resist the French occupation. He started a guerrilla war on the Lebanon-Palestine border. Al-Qassam's armed struggle disturbed England, which supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1935, while al-Qassam was wandering through the region, he was surrounded and killed by 500 British soldiers.