Opinion: Hamas will survive leader's death as it has many times before

The assassination of Hamas top leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday will most likely be the boost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been desperately looking for in this 10-month unprecedented genocidal war against the Palestinians. 

Or this is how it might seem.

Hamas affiliates, and many Palestinians would agree with them, martyrdom is not a loss, neither for the victim nor for his movement and his loved ones. In the Islamic doctrine, martyrdom is one of two successful outcomes in the struggle for truth and justice; the other is victory. 

When the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, was born out of the womb of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood organisation in December 1987, Haniyeh was a young cadre, who was about to turn 25. 

Yet, like many of his Islamic comrades, he was born a leader. Since his birth on 23 December 1962 to a refugee family that fled its homeland in Palestine, close to the city of Ashkelon during the Nakba of 1948, he grew up and lived in Al-Shati refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. 

Read more: Hamas will survive leader's death as it has many times before by Azzam Tamimi