Abdel Razak al-Yehiyeh

Abdel-Razak al-Yehiyeh or Abdul-Razzaq Al-Yahya (15 March 1929 – 9 March 2020)^[1] born in Tantura, near Haifa, then in the British Mandate of Palestine,^[2] also known as Abu Anas, was a Palestinian politician who served as Interior Minister of the Palestinian National Authority.

Abdel-Razak al-Yehiyeh
Interior Minister of the Palestinian National Authority
In office June 2007 – May 2009
President	Mahmoud Abbas
Prime Minister	Salam Fayyad
Preceded by	Hani Talab al-Qawasmi
Succeeded by	Said Abu Ali
In office 15 June 2002 – Late 2002
Preceded by	Hani al-Hassan
Succeeded by	Nasser Yousef
Personal details
Born	(1929-03-15)15 March 1929 Tantura, British Mandate of Palestine
Died	9 March 2020(2020-03-09) (aged 90)
Children	4 daughters and 1 son from his first marriage; 1 daughter and 1 son from his second marriage
Occupation	Politician, Military strategist, Author

Al-Yehiyeh trained as a military strategist and served as chief operations officer and then deputy chief-of-staff of the PLA brigade in Syria before 1967.^[2] In August 1968, he led an attempt to make PLA Syria brigades more independent of Syrian control, and was made PLA chief-of-staff by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee. But with Syria opposed, he resigned to become military advisor to the PLO Executive Committee from 1969^[3] and chief-of-staff of the Palestinian Armed Struggle Command (PASC) in February 1969.^{[citation needed]}

He was reappointed to the PLA as commander-in-chief by the PLO Executive Committee in June 1969.^[2] Then when Yasser Arafat took on that role in September 1970, al-Yehiyeh became chief-of-staff of all Palestinian forces.^[2]

Due to Syrian pressure, he was replaced in 1971, becoming director of the PLO's political department from 1971 to 1976,^[2] He was a member of the PLO Executive Committee from 1984 to 1991.^[1] Al-Yehiyeh headed security committees in talks with Israel from 1993 to 1995,^[4] including final status talks, and also headed negotiations on Hebron security arrangements and safe passage.^[2]

He was appointed as Interior Minister of the Palestinian Authority in June 2002, charged with overhauling Palestinian security forces.^[1][2][4] He was a member of the three-man delegation to Washington in August 2000.^{[citation needed]} He was involved in security talks with Israel, and headed a centralized security apparatus for the Palestinian Authority.

Al-Yehiyeh left the PA cabinet in late 2002, feeling that Arafat had prevented him from making any significant reforms. He published his book Between militarism and politics in 2006,^[5] and he was working on publishing a new book about peace negotiations between the Palestinian National Authority PNA and Israel.^{[citation needed]}

He was appointed Interior Minister on 15 June 2007.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life

From his first marriage, he had 4 daughters: Jomana, Lina, Roula and Rejwan. After the death of his first wife, he remarried and had a daughter Rana, and a son, Anas.^{[6][permanent dead link][better source needed]}