[3] He was regarded as one of the most prominent leaders of Hamas since the death of Ahmed Yassin, alongside Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.

[4] Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 Six-Day War forced Mashal's family to flee Palestine.

[7] He became the recognized head of Hamas after Israel assassinated both Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in the spring of 2004.

[2] Mashal's half-brother is the former Al-Sakhra Band singer and former Dallas Public Works and Transportation Department engineer Mufid Abdulqader.

Abduqalder is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the United States for funding Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

[13][14] Following the 1967 Six-Day War, during which Israel occupied the West Bank, his family fled[15] to Jordan and, after a month or two, they joined Abd al-Qadir in Kuwait,[2] where Mashal completed high school.

He headed the Islamic Justice list (qa'imat al-haq al-islamiyya) in the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) elections in 1977.

[18] The GUPS elections were cancelled and he founded the Islamic League for Palestinian Students (al-rabita al-islamiyya li tolaab filastin).

[23] Mashal was a founding member of Hamas' politburo,[6] and was elected chairman in 1996,[7] following the imprisonment of his predecessor Mousa Abu Marzook in 1995.

[6] On 25 September 1997, Mossad agents acting under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet attempted to assassinate him.

Immediately after the incident, Jordan's King Hussein demanded that Netanyahu turn over the antidote for the poison, threatening to sever diplomatic relations and to try the detained Mossad agents.

With Israeli-Jordanian relations rapidly deteriorating, King Hussein threatened to void the historic 1994 peace between the two countries should Mashal die.

[27] The head of Mossad, Danny Yatom, flew to Jordan, with Netanyahu's consent, bringing an antidote to treat Mashal.

According to Ronen Bergman based on internal IDF sources, Mashal's antidote only secured the release of the two Mossad Kidon agents that were carrying out the assassination attempt.

[7] The King feared that the activities of Hamas and its Jordanian allies would jeopardize peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel (Saeb Erekat and Gilead Sher,[31] leading to Sharm El Sheikh Memorandum), and accused Hamas of engaging in illegitimate activities within Jordan.

[36] Upon arriving at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, Mashal prostrated himself on the ground in prayer,[46] and was moved to tears by his reception.

[8] Just prior to the handover, Mashal presented the 2017 Hamas charter in Doha, in an effort to seal his legacy and commit those coming after him to the same policies.

[52] On 3 September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against Mashal for allegedly orchestrating the 7 October attack on Israel, along with other senior Hamas officials.

To the contrary, we are taught to reinforce the culture of coexistence, dialogue, cooperation, of give-and-take, and to avoid fanaticism, whether in religion, thought, or affiliation.He views the goal of Hamas to be to "end the Zionist occupation; to liberate the land and the holy places; to reclaim Palestinian rights; to secure the return of the refugees to their nation, lands, and homes; and to reclaim Jerusalem.

[61] In an op-ed shortly after Hamas' 2006 election victory, Mashal suggested a long-term truce:[62] Our message to the Israelis is this: We do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture.

"[64] In a meeting with former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in 2008, Mashal clarified that any agreement with Israel would have to be ratified with the Palestinian people in a referendum.

[67][68] Mashal was a vocal critic of the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, often refusing to follow directives issued by the PA regarding ceasefires with Israel.

[citation needed] Mashal believed that by blockading Gaza, Israel hoped to increase the suffering of the population so that they would turn against Hamas.

"[69] Mashal acknowledged the influence of Hezbollah on Hamas's suicide bombings in a July 2000 interview, stating: "We always have the Lebanese experiment before our eyes...

"[69] Following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Mashal praised the operation as a clever act of legitimate resistance against Israeli control.

He acknowledged that Hamas predicted the major consequences of the attack, stating that loss of Palestinian lives is a necessary sacrifice in their struggle for freedom.

In an interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (himself later indicted on corruption charges) accused Mashal of "roaming around, five-star hotel suites in the Gulf states; he's having the time of his life, while he's deliberately putting his people as fodder for this horrible terrorist war that they're conducting against us."

A few days later, Israeli operatives hacked into television networks in Gaza and broadcast a fabricated clip of Mashal talking about his extravagant hotel.

[15] Simultaneously, the Israeli press published stories about widespread corruption within the Hamas leadership, alleging that Mashal and Mousa Abu Marzook embezzled as much as $2.5 billion each.