Zakaria Muhammad 'Abdelrahman Zubeidi (; other spellings include Zakariyah Zbeidi, Zacharia and Zubaidi; born 1976) is the former Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

He is considered a "symbol of the Intifada", He pledged to put away his weapons as part of an Israeli amnesty in 2007, though he never gave his guns up in the sense of relinquishing them to the authorities.

Zubeidi nevertheless agreed to give up violence, and after a three-month probation period, was removed from Israel's wanted list. He subsequently devoted himself to 'cultural resistance' in the form of support for the Freedom Theatre at the Jenin Refugee Camp. and in May 2012 he was detained without charge by the Palestinian National Authority for six months. On 27 February 2019, Zubeidi was arrested again and in May charged before an Israeli military court with carrying out at least two shooting attacks on civilian buses in the West Bank. On 6 September 2021, he escaped from the Gilboa Prison in Israel's North, together with five other Palestinian prisoners, through a tunnel that they had dug. Five days later, on 11 September 2021, Zubeidi was caught near the Israeli village of Kfar Tavor.

In January 2025, Zubeidi was released as part of a 2025 Gaza war ceasefire, aimed at securing the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.

Early life

Zakaria was born in 1976 into the family of Mohammed and Samira Zubeidi, one of eight children at the Jenin refugee camp. The family originally came from a village near Caesarea from which they were expelled in the 1947–1949 Palestine war.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the First Intifada, Israeli human rights activist Arna Mer-Khamis opened a children's theater in Jenin, "Arna's House", to encourage understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. Dozens of Israeli volunteers ran the events, and Samira, believing that peace was possible, offered the top floor of the family house for rehearsals. Zubeidi, then aged 12, his older brother Daoud, and four other boys around the same age formed the core of the troupe. A year later, he was re-arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails and imprisoned for years. In prison, he learned Hebrew, and became politically active, joining Fatah.

Arna's son, Israeli actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, did return to Jenin in 2002 and looked for the boys who had been in the theater group. Zubeidi had turned to armed resistance, Daoud was sentenced to 16 years in prison for militant activities, and the other four were dead. In 2004, Mer-Khamis completed a documentary film about the group, Arna's Children. Zubeidi's face was slightly disfigured by fragments of shrapnel from a bomb that he mishandled in 2003. Prior to these incidents, another attempt on his life had been made by a Palestinian; Zubeidi broke his assailant's hand as a punishment. In an interview at this time with two Israeli journalists, Zubeidi assumed personal responsibility for a terrorist attack in Beit She'an in 2002, when two Palestinian gunmen from Jalbun shot six Israelis dead. In December 2004, Israeli sources criticized Abbas for meeting Zubeidi. Despite his readiness to accept Abbas' election to the presidency, Zubeidi still stated that he did not trust the latter in regard to the fundamental Palestinian claims concerning the status of Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. According to Zubeidi, Arafat was the only figure who could have fulfilled those aspirations, claiming this was "why he was poisoned... why Israel killed him." On 6 July 2006, the IDF attempted to capture Zubeidi at a funeral, but he escaped after an exchange of gunfire.

Amnesty

thumb|Juliano Mer-Khamis, Freedom Theatre Jenin, 2010

On 15 July 2007, the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister announced that Israel would include Zubeidi in an amnesty offered to militants of Fatah's al-Aqsa-Brigades. As of 2008, he was hired by Juliano Mer-Khamis (who was later murdered) as director of the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp.

Prior to Fatah's Sixth Conference in August 2009, Zubeidi called on fellow Fatah members to adopt a program of resistance in case peace negotiations with Israel failed and a Third Intifada broke out. Although he was accredited as one of 2,000 Fatah delegates to the conference in Bethlehem, Zubeidi was momentarily denied entry to the meeting hall. al-Aqsa Brigade members in Nablus and Jenin, as well as those outside of the Palestinian territories, protested the rebuff, describing it as "stabbing the resistance in the back." Fatah officials eventually gave him permission to attend on 5 August 2009. The PA was also asked by brigade members to ensure Zubeidi's safety from Bethlehem back to Jenin. A number of right-wing Israeli Knesset members submitted a petition to the Israeli military court on 6 August calling for Zubeidi's arrest, despite the fact that he had been amnestied, because his "hands have Israeli blood [on them].". In the speech he delivered at the conference, Zubeidi suggested the Fatah-ruled West Bank reunite with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip through force, if necessary. He criticized the "old leadership," condemning them for failing the Palestinian people, stating that "(d)uring 18 years of negotiations [under Fatah], no hope has been created." Zubeidi suggested that a younger generation of Palestinians should lead Fatah.

Cancelling of amnesty

On 29 December 2011, Israel rescinded Zubeidi's pardon and Zubeidi stated to Ma'an News Agency that he had not violated any of the conditions of his amnesty. He was advised by PA security officials to turn himself in to Palestinian custody lest he be arrested by Israel's security forces. A week before Zubeidi was notified about the cancellation of his amnesty, his brother had been arrested by the PA.

Zubeidi was then kept in detention without charge by the Palestinian Authority from May to October 2012. During this period, Zubeidi undertook to study for a master's degree from Birzeit University, where he was supervised by Abdel Rahim Al-Sheikh, Professor of Cultural Studies, with a thesis entitled The Dragon and the Hunter, that focused on the Palestinian experience of being pursued from 1968 to 2018 and was helped in collecting materials by his friend Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist, who provided him with documents from Haaretz's archives.

On 27 February 2019, before he could complete his dissertation, Zubeidi was arrested again, on suspicion of having engaged in terrorist activities, and in May he was charged before an Israeli military court with carrying out at least two shooting attacks on civilian buses in the West Bank.

2025 release

In January 2025, it was agreed to release Zubeidi as part of a three-phase ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, aimed at ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of Israeli hostages taken to Gaza.

References

  • 'We are at war' , Al-Ahram, 1 December 2004
  • Video: Zakariya Zubeidi Resistance Leader: A Changed Man