Sa'eed Siam

January 16 2009 4.23 am

GAZA- On Thursday one of my favorite politicians and ministers in the Palestinian government Sa’eed Siam, a prominent senior member of Hamas politburo and the Interior Minister of the Gaza based Palestinian Government, was assassinated in an Israeli air strike.

Sa’eed Siam was martyred together with his son Mohammed and brother Lyad and sister in law, and their son in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in the central parts of Gaza City. Sa'eed Siam was martyred when the Israelis launched a 1000 kg missile on the house of his brother,Sheikh Lyad Siam. Where the house ones stood is now a massive crater.A bodyguard of Sa'eed Siam was martyred and four neighbor's were also killed in the air strike.

Sa'eed Siam was appointed to the post as Interior Minister shortly after Hamas won the democratic legislative elections in 2006. Hamas has condemned the killing and have announced a period of mourning over the assassination of Sa'eed Siam, his bodyguard and members of the family. Hamas movement mourn Sa'eed Siam, saying that he was a prominent leader of the movement, always at the forefront and that Siam lived and worked together with previous martyrs of the movement ,such as Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Dr. Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi, Ibrahim al-Maqdmah, Ismail Abu Shanab, Jamal Mansour, Jamal Salim, Salah Shehadeh and Dr. Nizar al-Rayyan.

Sa'eed Siam was born on 22 July 1959 at the Shati' Rafugee camp in the west of Gaza City. The family of Sa'eed was in 1948 expelled from the village of Jura, near the city of Askalan. He graduated at the Teachers College in Ramallah in 1980, with a Diploma in teaching of science and mathematics.The Israelis jailed Siam several times in the 1990s,and in 1992. He was exiled for one year to the southern Lebanon.Sa'eed Siam earned a degree in Islamic Studies from the Jerusalem Open University in 2000. He taught at UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 till 2003, when he resigned as a result of harassment from the employer because of his political affiliation.Siam formed the Executive Forces, the core of the Hamas police force in Gaza Strip, a para.Hamas-controlled security apparatus after Hamas was elected to power in 2006. Sa'dee Siam took a hard line against Fatah, in internal Palestinian politics.

Sa'eed Siam worked as a voluntary Imam of the Yarmouk Mosque in Gaza city, as well as other mosques in the Gaza Strip.He participated in the reconciliation committees, formed by late Shiekh Ahmad Yassin during the first Palestinian Intifada. He was a trustee of the Islamic university IUG, a founding member of the Future Research Centre, the head of external relations department, and a member of the political leadership of the Hamas movement.

He was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, and was appointed Interior Minister in the tenth PA government.Siam Sa'eed was married and a father of six children. The death of Sa'eed Siam is a big loss and tragedy for Palestine.

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Hiyam Noir is Axis of Logic's correspondent in war-torn Gaza. She is a courageous writer, poet, editor and publisher of Palestine Free Voice. Read her bio and all her reports coming directly from Gaza in:

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