Abd al-Qader al-Husseini

The sequence of events that began with his return to Jerusalem in 1933 led to Abd al-Qader’s decision to organize for armed resistance against British rule in Palestine—the only way, he was convinced, to rid Palestine of British and Zionist imperialism. He took over the Palestine Arab Party’s bureau in Jerusalem and began preparing for an armed revolt against British forces under the banner of the al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (Holy Struggle) organization, which played a big role in mobilizing the Palestinian people in the months leading up to the general strike of April 1936 that launched the three-year revolt.20 On May 7, 1936, Abd al-Qader released the first statement of al-Jihad al-Muqaddas, calling for revolution against imperial forces in Palestine and the region.21 Thus began the armed Palestinian revolution against Great Britain, and Abd al-Qader launched it by going into battle himself in the village of Beit Surik, 12 kilometers northwest of Jerusalem, on the morning of May 7.22

Throughout the summer of 1936, military confrontations escalated between British forces and Abd al-Qader and his men, the Army of the Holy War (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas). One battle in particular was fateful. On October 4, 1936, Abd al-Qader fought alongside the Syrian revolutionary Sa‘id al-‘As in the Battle of al-Khader, southwest of Jerusalem near Bethlehem. Al-‘As had fought French forces in Syria during the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925–27 and decided to come to Palestine following the start of the 1936 Great Palestinian Revolt.23 Al-‘As was killed during the battle while Abd al-Qader was wounded gravely, allowing British forces to capture him and transport him in chains to a military hospital in Jerusalem to receive treatment while awaiting trial.24 However, his comrades managed to break him out of the hospital during the night and take him to Damascus, where he resumed his convalescence.25

Abd al-Qader watched developments in Palestine closely from Damascus. During this time, his men suffered great losses, what with their leader in Damascus and the difficulty of securing weapons due to lack of supply and steep prices.26 “The cost of a rifle is now more than 60 pounds and the pistol is now 35 pounds,” Abd al-Qader said to one of his men. “We can’t find the money to purchase [weapons], and I feel that our Arab brothers outside have begun to abandon the revolution,” he confided. He also spoke of his relative, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who was leading the Arab Higher Committee in Jerusalem: “Uncle Hajj Amin is experiencing interferences from the outside, as well as big pressure from some party leaders to break the strike and stop the revolution.”27

Following nearly two years in Damascus, Abd al-Qader secretly returned to Palestine in 1938 to rejoin the armed uprising against British forces, which by then had escalated considerably. He carried out his revolutionary work near Hebron and in October 1938, during a battle in the village of Bani Na‘im, he sustained grave injuries that nearly killed him.28 As a result, his comrades managed to get him out of Palestine and back to Syria. From there, he traveled to Baghdad in 1939 where he enrolled in a military academy from which he graduated as a reserve officer six months later.29 While in Baghdad, he also taught mathematics in a military academy and secondary school.30

In 1940, Abd al-Qader and Wajiha had their third child, Faisal, in Baghdad. In addition to their eldest, Haifa, the young couple had two other boys, Musa and Ghazi. As Ghazi remembers of his father: “He was exemplary in the family sense—an exemplary father and exemplary husband. At the same time, he never gave to his children at the expense of the [Palestinian] cause.”31

In addition to growing his family in exile, Abd al-Qader faced further oppression and banishment in Iraq due to his political activism. Still committed to his mission to rid the region of imperial forces, Abd al-Qader and a group of Palestinian comrades joined the anti-colonial uprising against the pro-British government of Iraq in April 1941.32 The revolt, led by Rashid Ali al-Kaylani and three other Iraqi army generals, overthrew the pro-British regime and placed al-Kaylani in power. A month later, Britain once more invaded and occupied Iraq, overthrowing al-Kaylani and reinstalling a puppet regime. In July, British forces exiled those involved in the coup, including Abd al-Qader, to the town of Zakho on the Turkish border.33

The 1936–39 Great Palestinian Revolt devastated the already struggling Palestinian nationalist movement, further pitting its leading families—the Husseinis and Nashashibis—against one another. As aforementioned, the Husseinis had established the Palestine Arab Party to rival the Nashashibis’ NDP, formed and led by Raghib Nashashibi. Raghib’s cousin Fakhri Nashashibi was also a key leader in the NDP and an opponent of the Husseinis, who had thrown their weight behind the revolutionaries. As is often the case in colonial contexts, the acrimony between the families was advantageous both for the British and Zionists, who were more than happy to collaborate with the Nashashibis.

In 1938, with the revolution escalating across Palestine and Raghib in Egypt, Fakhri took over the NDP and announced his support of the 1937 Peel Commission plan to partition Palestine between the Arabs and Zionists.34 He effectively pitted himself and the NDP against the revolutionaries in the midst of the uprising, choosing to collaborate with British and Zionist forces to suppress the revolution. In fact, with their lead opponent, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, and the majority of the leaders of the Arab Higher Committee in exile by late 1937, Fakhri and Raghib had begun negotiations with the Jewish Agency to reach a deal for partition. Between 1937 and the end of the revolt in 1939, Fakhri led the effort to create an armed force in 1938—the so-called Peace Bands—to hunt down the remaining revolutionaries. The Peace Bands even received arms from the Haganah.35 During those years, with members of the NDP being attacked or killed across Palestine, Raghib and Fakhri experienced assassination attempts on their lives.36

Fakhri was therefore squarely in the British-Zionist camp by the end of the revolution, and by April 1941, when the pro-British government in Baghdad was toppled by al-Kaylani and his comrades, Fakhri hosted Nuri al-Said and Prince Abd al-Ilah of the deposed Iraqi government when they fled Baghdad for Jerusalem. But their flight to Jerusalem was brief, and the two Iraqi leaders returned to Baghdad following the British takeover in May 1941.37 In November of that year, al-Said and the prince welcomed Fakhri in Baghdad, and on November 9, Fakhri was assassinated in front of his hotel in Baghdad by supporters of Hajj Amin.38

During these events, Abd al-Qader was in exile in Zakho, but Iraqi authorities immediately recalled him to Baghdad to interrogate him about the assassination. The interrogation led to his imprisonment in an Iraqi jail for two years.39 His son Ghazi explained that it was due to his mother’s relentless efforts that Abd al-Qader was finally released. Throughout her husband’s incarceration, Wajiha reached out to several Arab leaders, including Mostafa el-Nahas, former prime minister of Egypt, King Faruk of Egypt, and King Abd al-Aziz of Saudi Arabia, who pressured the Iraqi government to release Abd al-Qader as a political asylee to Saudi Arabia in late 1943.40 Abd al-Qader thus moved to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of King Abd al-Aziz, who had had close ties with his father, Musa Kazim, and Wajiha and the children joined him.

Ghazi remembers not recognizing his father when he first saw him in Saudi Arabia. The young boy approached his father and said, “Are you Abd al-Qader al-Husseini?” to which Abd al-Qader replied in the affirmative. “Are you my father?” Ghazi continued, to which his father replied in the affirmative again. “Were you the one imprisoned in Baghdad and my mother let you out?” Ghazi then relays that his father laughed and said, “Oh, how embarrassing!” at which point the little boy jumped to embrace his father.41 Ghazi says that the force of his embrace was so strong, someone had to catch Abd al-Qader from behind to stop him from falling with his son.

The Husseinis stayed as guests of the Saudi king for two years, during which time Abd al-Qader traveled to Germany in early 1944 for six weeks to train in the manufacture and use of explosives and mines.42 His anti-imperial fervor, to be sure, had only grown since fleeing Palestine and facing imprisonment by the pro-British Iraqi government.

Following two years in Saudi Arabia, Abd al-Qader and his family moved to Cairo in early 1946, shortly after the end of World War II. And despite efforts by the Egyptian government—still under the leadership of Ismail Sidqi at the time—to expel him, Egyptian nationalists managed to keep the revolutionary and his family in the country.43 Wajiha and the children could finally enjoy relative stability, though this, too, was short-lived. For nearly two years, Abd al-Qader organized arms deals of World War II weapons in Egypt’s Western Desert to smuggle into Palestine.44 This kept him very busy.

In September 1947, Britain announced it would withdraw from Palestine on May 14, 1948. That same month, a UN Special Committee on Palestine recommended the partition of Palestine—a proposal that was adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in November 1947. For Abd al-Qader and his comrades, this signaled the death knell of Palestinian national self-determination, as Britain’s plan was to hand Palestine to the Zionists, who had made considerable advances in laying the foundations of statehood since the suppression of the Great Palestinian Revolt. He could not sit idly by while Palestine was given to the Zionists.

Following the announcement of the UN partition plan on November 29, the Arab Higher Committee—operating in exile under Hajj Amin—announced a jihad, and days later in December 1947, Abd al-Qader managed to sneak back into Palestine through Sinai and to once more arm and lead Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas, which by this time was a military force of volunteer irregulars charged with defending Palestinian villages and towns from Zionist militias.45 It was also considered to be Abd al-Qader’s “personal army.”46 The leaders of the volunteer soldiers, Abd al-Qader and Hasan Salama, armed them with Nazi artillery Abd al-Qader had smuggled into Palestine from the Egyptian desert, and while Salama directed operations in the coastal areas, Abd al-Qader defended Jerusalem and the mountains surrounding it.47

During the next four months, Abd al-Qader and his small band of warriors managed to secure significant victories against the far more armed and better funded Zionist militias, especially along the critical Jerusalem-Jaffa Road, which Abd al-Qader defended to his last breath. In fact, Abd al-Qader and his men took control of the strategic Bab al-Wad area in early 1948, the geographic region approximately 23 kilometers west of Jerusalem where the road begins to ascend to a deep valley that provides access to Jerusalem from the coast. This meant that the Jewish community in Jerusalem was cut off from any supplies arriving via Tel Aviv or any other Jewish enclave to the west of the city—a considerable success for Abd al-Qader and his forces.48

Three other operations were noteworthy. On February 1, 1948, Abd al-Qader and his men drove a car loaded with explosives in front of the printing house of the Palestine Post, a Zionist newspaper in Jerusalem. One person was killed and 40 injured.49 On February 22, Abd al-Qader claimed responsibility for the bombing on the busy Ben Yehuda Street in which 3 British army trucks exploded, killing at least 52 and injuring scores more. Several buildings were also demolished.50 And weeks later, on March 11, Abd al-Qader’s fighters drove a car laden with explosives into the courtyard of the headquarters of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. The powerful blast killed 8 and injured 89 more. “The entire right wing of the building was blown apart, the roof was blown off and the rest of the building was badly damaged.”51 During these early months of 1948, Abd al-Qader and his men also managed to destroy roads and water pipes that led to Zionist settlements.52

But before long, Abd al-Qader faced the perennial struggle of arming his troops. On March 26, he traveled to Damascus to request arms and weapons from the military committee of the Arab League, which was responsible for operations in Palestine, in order to face the Zionists. The mission was to no avail. After 12 frustrating days asking for weapons,53 he received news that Zionists had taken the hilltop village of al-Qastal, located 8 kilometers west of Jerusalem, on April 3 as part of Operation Nachshon, which sought to break the siege Abd al-Qader and his men had laid to Jerusalem and the Jerusalem-Jaffa Road. This alarmed Abd al-Qader, not only because it was the first Palestinian village to fall to the Zionists, but also because of its strategic location. Centuries earlier, the French Crusaders had named the elevated village al-Qastal (from the word for citadel) because it was naturally fortified atop a high hill. Perched 800 meters above sea level, al-Qastal overlooked nearby villages and the Jerusalem-Jaffa Road. The capture of al-Qastal was thus a disastrous development in the defense of Jerusalem.

With this news, Abd al-Qader pleaded once more with Arab leaders in Damascus for weapons and artillery. He explained to them the strategic importance of al-Qastal and the fighters’ inability to liberate the village with the existing rifles and ammunition in their possession. He asked Ismail Safwat Basha, the Iraqi general commanding the committee, for cannons:

Safwat refused, saying in Iraqi Arabic, “maku madafe‘” (there are no cannons).55 Abd al-Qader was enraged. He is said to have thrown documents and maps in the face of Safwat and the Syrian defense minister, accusing them of betrayal and inaction.56 He vowed to save al-Qastal with whatever means he could and promptly returned to Jerusalem. But before heading into battle, he wrote the following letter to the general secretary of the Arab League in Cairo on April 6, 1948: “I hold you responsible for abandoning my soldiers at the height of their victories without support or arms.”57

The next day, April 7, Abd al-Qader and his men set out to liberate al-Qastal, a brave mission that resulted in his martyrdom hours later:

Abd al-Qader al-Husseini was killed at dawn on Thursday, April 8, 1948, but fighters in Jerusalem and the nearby villagers were informed that he was injured and that the Zionists had captured him. This led them to ambush the Zionists and retake the village by four o’clock on the same day, at which time they also learned of their leader’s death.59

That night, as Jerusalem’s fighters across the countryside mourned their fallen leader, Zionist forces recaptured al-Qastal. On that Friday, April 9, Jerusalem and its freedom fighters paused to bid farewell to their fearless leader. Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque were attended by thousands of Palestinians, and Abd al-Qader was laid to rest beside his father on al-Haram al-Sharif.60

That same day, Zionist forces invaded and massacred the residents of the village of Deir Yasin. In the disastrous days and weeks that followed, one Palestinian village after another was captured and ethnically cleansed by the invading forces.

The Battle of al-Qastal, alongside the massacre at nearby Deir Yasin, were decisive moments in Palestinian history.

“On that day,” Haifa remembers, “I went into the room and saw my mother was in a state. I asked her what was wrong. She told me: ‘There was a battle at al-Qastal yesterday. Your dad was victorious, but he is injured.’ I knew that something serious had happened, but I pushed the thought away. I told her he would heal. He had been seriously wounded three times before and healed. She said: ‘But this wound is very serious,’ and I insisted he would heal . . . I refused to let her say the word.”61

The Arab Higher Committee eulogized the departed warrior, describing him as “a great and heroic commander who has gallantly led the battles of jihad in defense of Palestine ever since the year 1936.”62 Kamal Nasser, a poet and leader in the PLO who was assassinated by Israeli agents in Beirut in 1973, wrote a poem in honor of Abd al-Qader titled “The Death of the Hero, the Martyr, the Leader.” Among its many lines are the following:

In an interview, Bahjat Abu Ghraybeh, a leader in the Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas who fought alongside Abd al-Qader, was asked what he and his men had accomplished. He answered: “We achieved the continuation of the resistance, the refusal of submission, and until now, after more than 60 years of the establishment of the Jewish state, the Jews have not managed . . . to end the resistance or to resolve the conflict in their interests. The struggle persists . . . until victory and return.”64

There is no doubt that Abd al-Qader had much to do with inculcating this spirit in the Palestinian people. Indeed, in the hundred-year war on Palestine, Abd al-Qader al-Husseini is undeniably Jerusalem’s emblematic war hero.

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Sheleg, Yair. “A Short History of Terror.” Haaretz, December 3, 2001.

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Yaqoub, Aws Daoud. “Poems Eulogizing the Martyr of the Battle of al-Qastal.” [In Arabic.] Diwan al-Arab, April 19, 2011.