Tawfiq Abu Naim
Tawfiq Abu Naim (توفيق أبو نعيم) was born in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza in 1962. Abu Naim was the head of Hamas’s Internal Security Force between 2015-2021. He stood as a candidate in the May 2021 legislative elections, running on Hamas’s ‘Jerusalem Is Our Promise‘ list.
Prior to Hamas’s creation, he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Abu Naim was an early activist with the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, reportedly setting up a militant cell with Rawhi Mushtaha and Yahya Sinwar before his arrest by Israel in 1989. He was released in the 2011 Israeli-Hamas prisoner exchange. He survived an Israeli assassination attempt in October 2017.