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Tawfiq Muhammad Hussein Al-Tirawi (born November 15, 1946 in Al-Tira) is a Palestinian political leader and security official who contributed to the establishment of the Palestinian Intelligence Agency. He has received several academic certificates and founded the Independence University (Palestinian Academy for Security Sciences), where he served as its chairman until 2022.

Personal life
Tawfiq Al-Tirawi was born on November 15, 1946 in Al-Tira, Ramla District, to a Palestinian family that had been displaced due to the 1948 War. He moved between West Bank and Lebanon governorates, but returned to Ramallah where he settled. He studied elementary school in Rantis village, then transferred to Salfit city's Sakaka village, then to Aqaba Camp in Jericho, completing his intermediate studies there. He obtained a high school diploma from the Ibrahimi College in Jerusalem. In addition, he received an Arabic literature certificate from the University of Beirut in 1967 and another certificate in philosophy and psychology from the same university.

After returning to Palestine in 1994, Al-Tirawi continued his higher education, obtaining a master's degree in educational administration from An-Najah National University in 2008.

In the wake of his studies in Lebanon in 1967, Tawfiq Al-Tirawi joined Fatah Movement and headed the Lebanese branch of the General Union of Palestinian Students between 1969 and 1971. He held various official and activist positions after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Al-Tirawi continued his advancement within Fatah, making him a member of the Executive Committee of the General Union of Palestinian Students in 1978, a member of the Palestinian National Council, and the Lebanese Region Committee of Fatah.

Due to this, he was pursued and arrested by Syrian forces in Lebanon in 1985. He was transferred from Lebanon to Syria and then to Cyprus, where he was not released until 1990.

Following the signing of the Oslo Agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1993, Al-Tirawi returned to Palestine in 1994 after a long period abroad. He helped establish the General Intelligence Agency and took charge of it in the West Bank. Al-Tirawi is considered one of the Palestinian leaders who were besieged by Israel with then-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at the Ramallah compound in 2002-2003.

In late August 2007, he was appointed head of the General Intelligence Agency as a brigadier general by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. However, he was dismissed on November 21, 2008, stating that his dismissal came "on the request of an American-Israeli." He refused to be appointed as a security advisor to the president with the rank of minister, considering it a "formal position."

At its sixth conference on August 12, 2009, Al-Tirawi became a member of Fatah's Central Committee and took over the post of general coordinator for popular organizations within the movement until his resignation from this file in 2011. He assumed the post of general coordinator for ideological mobilization and studies in 2013.

Al-Tirawi also heads the Board of Trustees of Independence University in Jericho, in addition to the National Committee for Investigating the Circumstances Surrounding the Martyrdom of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, established in 2009.

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Living people
People from Al-Tira
People from Ramallah
Fatah Central Committee members
Palestinian National Council members
Al-Ibrahimi College alumni
An-Najah National University alumni
University of Beirut alumni
Palestinian politicians
Palestinian military personnel
Fatah military leaders
Palestinian refugees
Births in 1368 AH (1949)
Births in 1946
Births in 1948