Ghassan Kanafani غسان كنفاني | |
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| Born | Ghassan Fayiz Kanafani April 8, 1936 Akka, Palestine |
| Died | July 8, 1972 Beirut, Lebanon |
| Cause of death | Assassination |
| Nationality | Palestinian |
| Political orientation | Marxism-Leninism Anti-Imperialism |
| Political party | Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine |
Ghassan Kanafani was a Palestinian writer and Marxist-Leninist political activist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He served as spokesman for the PFLP and was murdered by the Zionist Entity in 1972 in Lebanon.[1]
Biography[edit | edit source]
Ghassan Kanafani was born in Akka, Palestine, which was then under British rule. His parents were Fayiz Kanafani, a lawyer, and Aisha al-Salim. He was the third of eight children.[1]
He studied at College des Freres, a French Catholic missionary school as a young child.[1]
His family was forced out of their home in 1948, when Kanafani was 12, by Zionist forces during the Nakba. They fled to Lebanon before settling in Damascus, Syria.[1]
He began to work at a printing press in Damascus while studying Arabic literature at the University of Damascus. He began to work as an art teacher in UNRWA schools in 1953. Around this time he met the Palestinian revolutionary Marxist-Leninist George Habash and began to become politically involved.[1]
In 1960 he moved to Kuwait before settling in Beirut, Lebabon soon after. There he met Danish activist Anni Hover. They married in 1961 and would go on to have two children, a daughter named Laila and a son named Fayez.[1]
In 1967 he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He became the editor of its magazine Al-Hadaf and a spokesman for the group.[1]
In 1972 members of the Japanese Red Army in collaboration with the PFLP carries out an attack on Lod Airport in the Zionist Entity. In response to this Mossad, the "Israeli" intelligence agency, placed a bomb in his car. When he turned the ignition it went off, killing him and his 17-year-old niece Lamees Najim.[1]