Wanted in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood Icon Youssef al-Qaradawi Dies At 96

Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars Youssef al-Qaradawi speaks during a news conference in Doha on June 23, 2014. (Reuters)
Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars Youssef al-Qaradawi speaks during a news conference in Doha on June 23, 2014. (Reuters)
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Wanted in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood Icon Youssef al-Qaradawi Dies At 96

Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars Youssef al-Qaradawi speaks during a news conference in Doha on June 23, 2014. (Reuters)
Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars Youssef al-Qaradawi speaks during a news conference in Doha on June 23, 2014. (Reuters)

Egyptian-born cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, who was based in Qatar, died on Monday, according to a post on his official Twitter account.

Qaradawi was considered an icon and a spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is classified as a terrorist group in Egypt.

He rose among the group’s ranks and had contacted its founder, Hassan al-Banna in the 1940s, and remained supportive of the organization throughout his life.

In 2018, Egypt sentenced Qaradawi in absentia to life in prison after a military court convicted him, along with others, of participating in the 2015 assassination of interior ministry public security Colonel Wael Tahoon, as well as the killing of one other policeman and one civilian.

Born in 1926 in the Egyptian Delta, Qaradawi studied at Al-Azhar. He graduated from the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion. In 1973, he received his doctorate in Islamic studies.

Throughout his studies and his youth, Qaradawi was organizationally committed to the Brotherhood, and was imprisoned several times.

He has been living in Qatar since 1961.

Over the years, Qaradawi wrote several books and issued numerous fatwas related to Muslims living in societies with a non-Muslim majority. His fatwas had always sparked controversy.

With the arrival of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt in 2011, Qaradawi, who had been exiled by former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, returned to the country to deliver his first public speech in the Tahrir Square.

The late cleric had used his platform at the International Union for Muslim Scholars to attack Egypt, after the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Despite his keenness to appear in the distinguished dress of Al-Azhar’s clerics, Qaradawi had been dismissed from the membership of Al-Azhar’ Senior Scholars Council in 2013 for insulting Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb and the religious authority in Egypt.



Gaza Civil Defense Says Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 29

A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
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Gaza Civil Defense Says Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 29

A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed at least 29 Palestinians, including six children near a water distribution point.

The attacks came with apparent deadlock in a week of indirect talks in Qatar between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire in the territory.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that Gaza City was hit by several strikes overnight and in the early morning, killing eight, "including women and children" and wounding others.

An Israeli airstrike hit a family home near the Nuseirat refugee camp, south of Gaza City, resulting in "10 martyrs and several injured", Bassal said.

In central Gaza, six children were among eight people killed when a drone "hit a potable water distribution point in an area for displaced people" in the Nuseirat camp, he added.

Several other people were wounded, he said.

In the territory's south, three people were killed when Israeli jets hit a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in the coastal Al-Mawasi area, according to the civil defense spokesman.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has recently intensified its operations across Gaza, more than 21 months into the war triggered by Hamas's October 2023 attack.

On Saturday, the military said fighter jets had hit more than 35 "Hamas terror targets" around Beit Hanun in northern Gaza.

The vast majority of Gaza's population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions in the territory.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.