Haniyeh’s crossover appeal is expected to serve him well as he tries to put together a Hamas-Fatah unity government, following a power-sharing deal that ended deadly factional fighting. Unlike most Hamas figures, Haniyeh has a cordial relationship with Fatah leaders.

Haniyeh’s detractors say he is just a frontman for Hamas’ supreme leader, the Syria-based Khaled Mashaal, and that his inexperience shows; Haniyeh never held political office before becoming prime minister.

For many Palestinians, Haniyeh’s most attractive quality is his modest lifestyle. The gray-bearded 45-year-old with a bearlike build kept his two-story home in the Shati refugee camp even after being appointed prime minister following Hamas’ victory in January 2006 parliament elections.

Residents said Haniyeh shares electricity from his generator during frequent outages, attends social events in the camp and once spent an hour digging dirt at a neighbor’s construction site.

Asked why he remained in Shati after becoming prime minister, he said: "I was born here, I was raised here, I walked the streets here. I must stay with my people."

He attributed his popularity to "divine mystery."

Haniyeh, a father of 13, was born in Shati in 1962, to parents who fled what is now Israel during the 1948 Middle East war. He served as student council leader at Gaza City’s Islamic University, and in 1992 was deported by Israel to southern Lebanon for a year, along with hundreds of other Islamic militants. After his return, he took a job in the dean’s office of the Islamic University and for more than five years served as personal assistant to the charismatic Hamas founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

Emad Eissa, 38, who runs a fish restaurant in Shati, said he likes Haniyeh, with whom he played soccer as a boy, but that this does not translate into political support. Eissa, a Fatah loyalist, said the aid boycott has meant a 90 percent drop in his business in the past.