Nizar Rayan was a high-ranking Hamas leader who served as a liaison between the Palestinian organization's political leadership and its military wing. Also, a professor of Islamic law, he became a top Islamic scholar within Hamas after the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004.

On January 1, 2009, the zionist regime’s aircraft fired five heavy missiles at Rayan’s house, which was located in the middle of Jabalia refugee camp – one of the densest places in the world – killing at least eight people, including 49-year-old Nizar Rayyan, his wife Nawal Rayyan, his 6-year-old son Abdul-Rahman Rayyan, and another woman related to him, 49-year-old Sabah Abdul-Rahman Rayyan.

Rayan was born in Jabalia, Gaza Strip on 6 March 1959. In 1982, he received a BSc degree in Theology and Religious studies from Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He then attended the University of Jordan in Amman and in 1990 received a masters MSc degree with honors.

In 1994, Rayan completed his PhD in Islamic studies at the Omdurman Islamic University in Omdurman, Sudan. His dissertation has the title of Future of Islam: Objective Analysis.

After his studies, Rayan returned to Gaza and was employed as an imam at several mosques, Jabalia's Imad Aqil Mosque among them He later became a professor of Islamic law at the Islamic University of Gaza. Rayan was a leading authority on Hadith, and he had a 5,000-book library in his home.

Eventually, Rayan became an important leader in Hamas, in particular an Islamic leader of Hamas's military wing, and he regularly went on patrol with Hamas fighters after delivering lectures at the Islamic University.

In 2001, with Rayan's sent his 22-year-old son on a martyrdom bombing mission in which he died and killed two Zionist soldiers at the former illegal settlement Elei Sinai in the Gaza Strip.

Rayan was strongly opposed to “the state of israel,” saying: “True Islam would never allow a Jewish state to survive in the Arab and Muslim Middle East. israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against Allah.”

Rayyan was martyred along with his four wives, Hayam Timraz, Nawal Kahlout, Eyman Kassab, Sherin Udwan, and ten of his children, Ghassan, Abdul-Qadir, Ayah, Maryam, Zaynab, Abdul-Rahman, Aysha, Halima, Osama and Reem who were between four and 17-years-old. (ILKHA)