Senior Hamas commander Issa al-Batran was killed Saturday in an Israeli airstrike that followed a Grad rocket attack on the city of Ashkelon. While several news outlets reported details of Batran's past, including previous attempts on his life, they failed to note a major component of Batran's personal life: his day job as a United Nations-employed schoolteacher.Had to bring home the bacon somehow. Couple wives and umpteen children, after all, and a Hamas hard boy paycheck doesn't stretch as far as it used to. How else does he send the wives to the Gaza resort and spa and the kiddies to kaboom college?
Batran taught at a UN school in Al-Bureij. According to the Bethlehem-based Maan news agency Batran worked in the school at least until January 2009, and possibly beyond that time.
His job as a schoolteacher was mentioned by Maan and other Arab news outlets in 2009, when several members of the Batran family were killed in an airstrike during the counterterror operation Cast Lead. At that time, his senior position in Hamas was not mentioned.
Hamas has vowed Dire Revenge™.