Jihad al-Masri (Jihād al-Masrī) (جهاد سليمان المصري) was a historian, scholar, writer and, at the time of his death, the director of al-Quds Open University’s Khan Yunis branch. He was born in Rafah on 1 January 1963. 

After high school in Rafah, Jihad al-Masri spent much of the 1980s and 1990s outside Palestine to pursue his education and begin his career. He completed his bachelor’s degree in History from Yarmouk University in Jordan in 1987 and then spent six years in Libya (1988-94) teaching in the Ministry of Education’s teachers’ institutes. He then returned to Jordan and taught at private schools (1994-98) and UNRWA schools (1998-2000). While teaching, he pursued graduate studies, earning a master’s degree in Islamic History from Al al-Bayt University in Mafraq in 1999 with a thesis entitled, Education in the Levant in the Ayyubid Period. 

Professor al-Masri returned to Palestine in 2000 and spent one year as a lecturer at al-Azhar, Islamic and al-Aqsa universities in Gaza, before joining al-Quds Open University in Rafah. After one year as lecturer (2001-02), he began a long tenure in university administration from 2003. He was academic and administrative assistant to the director of al-Quds Open University in Rafah until 2022 when he was promoted to the position of director of the university’s Khan Yunis branch. (It is worth noting that for several years he also headed the university’s Oral History Center.) 

Despite his numerous administrative responsibilities, Professor al-Masri continued to have an active scholarly life. He wrote books and published articles in Arabic and gave talks at academic conferences on topics in Islamic history, modern and contemporary Palestinian history. He demonstrated a special interest in women’s history and conducting oral histories. Among his numerous publications is his book: The Symbolism of the Keys of Return in Palestinian Refugee Women’s Literature and Its Reflection in the Works of Palestinian Creatives, published in 2011 by the BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights and awarded a prize from the Center for the quality of its research. Among his many conference papers, “Why Gaza Palestinians Select Belgium as Asylum Destination,” presented in Brussels in 2019, highlights his use of oral history as an effective research method. 

In the early hours of 17 October 2023, four members of the al-Masri family were killed and three others were injured by Israeli aerial bombardment in Khan Yunis. Jihad al-Masri was severely wounded in the attack and succumbed to his injuries in hospital twelve days later – on 29 October. He was 60 years old. His wife, one of their daughters and a grandson were killed in that attack; another daughter and two grandsons were severely injured. The killed and injured represented three generations of the al-Masri family. 

In an obituary posted on Facebook, al-Quds Open University paid tribute to Jihad al-Masri, a “scholar and educator.” Another obituary penned by the literary community described him as “a historian and university professor whose contributions spanned generations.” By his family and friends Jihad al-Masri was referred to lovingly as “Abu Hussam.”

Photo credits: IPS