Zuhair Ahmed Bakr al-Khatib, born in the city of Lod in 1935 AD, received his primary and preparatory education in its schools, and completed his secondary education in the West Bank, after his family was displaced in 1948 due to the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people and they were displaced from their homes at the beginning of the fifties of the last century, where he obtained a certificate After that.
He traveled to Cairo to join the Faculty of Law, Cairo University, and upon the establishment of the General Union of Palestinian Students, he had the great honor of being elected president of the Union in Cairo, as its first president in 1959. In 1972, the first conference of the Union of Palestinian Jurists was held in Cairo with three branches (Egypt and Syria).
The Federation was established, and its activities expanded, as it has thirteen branches in the Arab countries. In 1989, the fourth conference of the Jurists’ Union was held in Tunisia, and Mr. Jamal Al-Sourani was elected as President of the Federation and Zuhair Al-Khatib, the Secretary-General of the Federation.
He was a participant in many international and Arab human rights organizations and had an interest in parliamentary and political forums wherever he represented Palestine, its students, deputies, and the people of its camps.
He worked in the State of Kuwait since graduating of university in the Ministry of Justice until 1990.
Zuhair belonged to Fatah movement in the mid-sixties of the last century, and then he became a member of the Kuwait Region Committee when he worked there. Then he was appointed as a member of the Palestinian National Council. He is also a member of the Palestinian Central Council (PLO).
Counselor Zuhair Al-Khatib held several positions in the PLO:
– Member of the Palestinian National Council and Chairman of the Council’s Legal Committee.
– Member of the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization in his capacity as Secretary-General of the Palestinian Jurists Union.
Appointed director of the Palestinian Presidency in Tunisia in 1991.
– A member of Fatah movement conferences from its founding until the sixth conference in 2009.
– Adviser to Martyr President Yasser Arafat.
After the disease exhausted his immaculate body, his soul overflowed to its creator at dawn on Sunday, 18/06/2017 in Amman, where he was buried in the Islamic Sahab Cemetery after the afternoon prayer.
