# Nayef Hawatmeh

Palestinian nationalism Factions and leaders :
Yassin + Haniyeh RantisiMashalSinwarDeifDeifMabhouhHabashAbbasHawatmehNakhalah :
Map: Birthplaces or family origins Details below: p. parents from, b. born in, d. death. :
Palestine Liberation Organization
Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas
Also: President of the PNA
PLO political factions
Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC)
Palestinian People's Party (PPP)
Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF)
Arab Liberation Front (ALF)
Palestinian Democratic Union (FIDA)
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF)
Palestinian Arab Front (PAF)
Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War – Lightning Forces (As-Sa'iqa)
Related groups
Palestinian National Initiative
Leader Mustafa Barghouti :
Fatah
Founders
Yasser Arafat
p. Gaza City b. Cairo d. 2004 in Paris
Khaled Yashruti
Salah Khalaf
Khalil al-Wazir
Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas
b. Safed
(President of the PA)
Secretary-General
Jibril Rajoub
Vice Chairman
Mahmoud Aloul :
Fatah splinter groups
Al-Mustaqbal (electoral list)
Marwan Barghouti
Prisoner of Israel
see also: Gaza war hostage crisis
Palestinian Mujahideen Movement
Militant wing Mujahideen Brigades
Former militant wings of Fatah
Raed Al Karmi
Founder of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
Naif Abu-Sharah
Local commander in Nablus
Fadi Kafisha
Former head of the Tanzim in Nablus
Sirhan Sirhan
Zakaria Zubeidi
Local commander in Jenin
see also Tali Fahima
Samih Madhoun
d. killed by EQB
Ibrahim al-Nabulsi
see also: Lions' Den :
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Secretary General
George Habash
b. Lydda
Abu Ali Mustafa
Birth name: "Mustafa Ali Zabri"
b. 1938 Arraba, Jenin Jenin
See also: 17 October 2001
Ahmad Sa'adat
Prisoners of Israel since 2006
see also: Gaza war hostage crisis
Deputy Secretary General
Jamil Mezher
Other key figures
Ghassan Kanafani
Schisms and splinter groups
PFLP-GC :
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Split from the PFLP in 1969.
Founder and current leader
Nayef Hawatmeh
b. 1938 As-Salt
Militant wing National Resistance Brigades
Spokesperson: Abu Khaled :
Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Ziyad al-Nakhalah
b. Khan Yunis
Militant wing Al-Quds Brigades :
Hamas
List of leaders
Chairman of Hamas Shura Council (1987‑2004)
Ahmed Yassin
b. Al-Jura, d. 2004
Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi
b. Yibna, d. 2004
Chairman of Hamas Polit Bureau
Ismail Haniyeh
p. Al-Jura, b. Al-Shati, d. 2024
Khaled Mashal
b. Silwad
Leader in the Gaza Strip
Yahya Sinwar
p. Al‑Majal, b. Khan Yunis, d 2024
Head of International relations
Basem Naim
b. Beit Hanoun
Police and Disaster Management
Faiq Al-Mabhouh
p. Bayt Tima, d. 2024
Minister for Women's Affairs
Jamila Abdallah Taha al-Shanti
b. Jabalia, d. 2023, m. Widow of Rantisi
Militant wingAl-Qassam Brigades
Leader Mohammed Deif
Birth name: Mohammed Al-Masri
p. Kawkaba (near Kokhav Michael) and Al‑Qubayba, b. Khan Yunis
d. Failed attempt in 2014
d. Unconfirmed: 2024)
Related topics
Gaza Strip under Hamas
Hamas in Lebanon
All-Palestine Government in Gaza
Ashkelon incorporation into Israel :
Historical figures
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Namesake of the Al-Qassam Brigades
Musa Alami
early Palestinian nationalist
b. 1897 in Jerusalem
Yaqub al-Ghusayn
b. 1899 in Ramla
George Antonius
b. 1891 Deir al-Qamar
al-Husayni family
Jamal al-Husayni
Musa al-Husayni :
Related topics
Ideologies
Palestinian nationalism
Islamism in the Gaza Strip
Islamic nationalism § Hamas
Present day
Palestinian political parties
Elections in Palestine
Palestinian political violence
Gaza Strip under Hamas
Palestinian Legislative Council
State of Palestine
Occupied Palestinian territories
List of Palestinians
1967 to 1995
Palestinian fedayeen
History of Hamas
1948 to 1967
All-Palestine Government
Gaza Protectorate
Jordanian annexation of the West Bank
Palestinian National Council
1918 to 1948
Mandatory Palestine
Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine
Army of the Holy War
Society for the Defense of Palestine
Before 1918
Origin of the Palestinians :
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2024) :
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Nayef Hawatmeh (Arabic: نايف حواتمة, romanized: Nāyef Ḥawātmeh; Kunya: Abu an-Nuf; born 17 November 1938) is a Jordanian politician who is the head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

## Biography

Hawatmeh hails from a Jordanian clan and is a practicing Greek Catholic. He has been the General Secretary of the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) since its formation in a 1969 split from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), of which he was also a founder. At the time, he was characterized as a Maoist, and was satirically referred to as "Nayef Zedong". He was active as a leader in the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), which preceded the PFLP.
He presently resides in exile in Syria, from which the DFLP receives some support.
Hawatmeh did not support Fatah's policy of non-interference in the host country’s internal affairs from 1969 and argued just before Black September that attacks against King Hussein's regime in Jordan had become inevitable. He opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords, calling them a "sell-out," but became more conciliatory in the late 1990s. In 1999 he agreed to meet with Yassir Arafat, who had signed the accords, and even shook hands with Israeli President Ezer Weizmann at the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan, drawing strong criticism from his Palestinian and Arab peers.
In 2004, he was briefly active in a joint Palestinian-Israeli non-governmental attempt to start a coalition of Palestinian groups supporting a two-state solution, and called for a cessation of hostilities in the al-Aqsa Intifada.
In 2007, Israel indicated it would allow him to travel to the West Bank for the first time since 1967, in order to participate in a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In the end, he decided not to travel to West Bank due to what he described as "Israeli conditions for his visit."
Although the DFLP’s support has waned for a period under Hawatmeh's general secretariat, there has been an increase in the credibility and support of the DFLP among Palestinians and in the eyes of other groups, particularly in Gaza. In Gaza on 21 February 2023, the 54th anniversary of the group’s founding, hundreds of supporters as well as many armed fighters marched, carried the party banner and symbols, and chanted DFLP anti-Zionist slogans.
In 2023, the DFLP, under Hawatmeh's leadership, joined the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel with their paramilitary wing, the National Resistance Brigades. The DFLP acknowledged their involvement through their party news, Al Hourriah, on 8 October. The National Resistance Brigades have since fought the IDF alongside Hamas and other allied Palestinian factions in subsequent battles of the Israel-Hamas war throughout the Gaza Strip.