Name: Akram Sudqi Atteyah Al-Atrash

Nickname: Abu El-Qassam

Birth date: 19 March 1973

Martyrdom date: 9 October 2002

Hometown: Al-Khalil

Residence: Al-Khalil

“His blind eyes saw clearly with the vision of the Holy Quran he kept in his heart”

Abu El-Qassam, you’ve written a beautiful line and weaved a bright thread in Palestinian history. With determination and dedication, you overcame the darkness to become an inspiration. Excuses, strong or feeble, didn’t exist in your lexicon. You are a living testimony for the will power and against lethargy. Abu El-Qassam left us to wonder, is there any excuse against liberation of the soul and the land? The inheritance you carried throughout your life is burdensome for the strong to carry after you. You have made it clear to us that we have one choice for anyone who wants to live.

Childhood and Education:

Akram (Abu El-Qassam) was born in Wadi El-Herya neighborhood in Al-Khalil. He had 5 brothers and a sister. Akram received his elementary education in a school for the blind in Bethlehem. Then he moved on to the Islamic Shariya School in Al-Khalil. Despite the fact that he was learning using Braille, Akram was a very distinguished student.

A relative who lived with Akram’s family for 15 years said that during her stay with the family, she did not witness a single negative act by Akram. She says that Akram loved to frequent mosques since his childhood despite being born with a 95% vision disability. And he was very kind to his family members, children and adults.

He Then he enrolled in Al-Khalil University in the college of Islamic Shariya, where he got a Bachelor’s degree and enrolled in the Master’s program. In addition to his studies, Akram was very active in the student body as the head of the Islamic Bloc in the University. But the most important education Akram had was that he memorized the Holy Quran

Jihad:

Occupation forces imprisoned Abu El-Qassam 3 times. The first time, he spent 2 years in prison. The second time, he spent 18 months. And the third time, he spent 6 months in administrative detention.

Abu El-Qassam was called the “Teacher Amir” by his colleagues. His efforts in propagating Islam among the community were tireless. He seized all available opportunities to fulfill this mission in public and in private. For example, he gave a speech in the house of mourning of the first martyr in Al-Khalil in Al-Aqsa intifada in which he encouraged people to be steadfast and called upon collaborators to stop their betrayal.

Whenever he met another person, Abu El-Qassam was always smiling and welcoming. He asked about the welfare of the people he met; and he always offered his assistance to them. He would ask them if they needed his help in anything! He was a generous man who always invited his friends to his house. He never let them leave without being the generous host.

And his behavior wasn’t empty words. Abu El-Qassam was a man of actions. He joined the ranks of Hamas since the beginning of the first Intifada. He was an outspoken person who gave speeches in many Hamas public activities and celebrations. Abu El-Qassam offered refuge to wanted members of Al-Qassam Brigades for years. And he was charged with leading the Al-Qassam Brigades network in the southern West Bank. In this capacity, he was in charge of organizing many resistance operations against occupation forces.

But Abu El-Qassam’s efforts didn’t stop with monumental tasks. He did everything he could to support resisting the occupation. When Akram would smell the burning tires signaling demonstrations and confrontations against the occupation forces, he’d start to chant “Allah Akbar” loudly in the house. A neighbor once asked the family to ask him to stop so as not to lead soldiers to the area. And Akram replied, “Nothing less than that,” referring to the fact that he cannot do more to support the demonstrators. Even in his house and restrained by his disability from being in the street with the demonstrators, Abu El-Qassam did what he could to be with them with this chants and prayers.

Martyrdom:

Occupation forces pursued Abu Al-Qassam, the leader of Al-Qassam Brigades. And for two years, the man with the 5% eye-sight eluded them and carried on with his jihad. His family suffered mightily at the hands of occupation forces that raided their home tens of times and arrested family members.

On 9 October 2002, occupation forces stormed the village of Durra and shelled a number of houses with rockets and tanks. After the operation, Abu El-Qassam’s body, charred and burned, was recovered from the rubble of the place where he was seeking refuge; and so ended one of the most incredible stories of determination and empowerment in the history of Palestinian resistance.  

“Let the eyes of cowards never taste sleep. Abu El-Qassam showed us that there is no excuse to apathy.”