Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Hussein Shehadeh Muhammad al-Sheikh was born in Ramallah on December 14, 1960, to a Palestinian refugee family originally from the depopulated village of Deir Tarif, in the occupied Ramle district. He is married with four children. He served as an officer in the National Security Service (NSS) from 1994 to 1997, and as head of the General Authority of Civil Affairs with the rank of minister since 2007. He also serves as head of the Civilian Coordination Committee (CAC), the official link between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government.
The Sheikh belonged to the Fatah movement, participated in its national activities, and was one of its cadres in the occupation prisons between 1978 and 1989. He was active in the first Palestinian Intifada, and was deputy head of the political committees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem (a political formation representing the cadres of the PLO in the occupied territories), and a member of the Supreme Fatah Movement Committee in the West Bank.
He was elected as a member of the Fatah Central Committee at its Sixth General Conference held in Bethlehem in 2009. He chaired the Preparatory Committee for the Seventh General Conference held in Ramallah in 2016, during which he was elected as a member of the Central Committee. He also obtained membership in the Palestinian National Council and the Central Council. He then became a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on behalf of Fatah on February 7, 2022, during the thirty-first session of the Central Council, where he replaced Saeb Erekat due to the latter's death. Since then, he has been Secretary of the PLO Executive Committee, and has joined the Fatah delegation for reconciliation talks with Hamas since 2016.
As the PA's head of civil affairs, Sheikh Al-Sheikh signed agreements on joint Palestinian crossings with countries bordering the Palestinian border and with the occupying power. He also handled family reunification issues, the retrieval of the bodies of Palestinian martyrs held by the occupation, granting permits to visit Palestine to foreigners and Palestinians who do not hold a Palestinian passport, and coordinating the issuance of permits for PA institutions and civil society to travel between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. He was also appointed by the government to oversee the Gaza reconstruction program.
The Sheikh has participated in several regional and international conferences representing the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He has accompanied President Mahmoud Abbas on his foreign tours as the Authority seeks international recognition of the Palestinian state. He also meets with officials from around the world visiting Palestine and makes statements to Palestinian, Arab, and international media expressing the positions of the Fatah movement, the Palestinian Authority, and the PLO on developments in the Palestinian cause.
The sheikh suffered throughout his life. He was arrested by the occupation forces in 1978 when he was 17 years old, and spent 11 years in prison before being released in 1989 at the beginning of the First Intifada.
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