Al-Saadi spent 15 years over several stints in Israeli jails for being an Islamic Jihad member. Leader’s arrestĪl-Jabari’s killing comes on the heels of the arrest earlier this week by Israeli forces of Bassam al-Saadi, 62. And for that reason, Israel is trying arrest its leaders in the West Bank and to contain any action that Islamic Jihad might escalate,” he said. But it is not about the size it is about power, efficiency, and the ability to engage militarily in a confrontation with Israel.
“In the West Bank it has a presence, I’d say similar to Gaza.
Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz threatened to target leaders of Islamic Jihad living abroad, and Israel said on Saturday it arrested 19 members of the group in the occupied West Bank.įraihat described a “war in Jenin” during the last five months with PIJ instigating attacks within Israel and Israeli forces raiding the city and arresting and killing its members. Islamic Jihad maintains a significant presence in the West Bank town of Jenin, where Bassam al-Saadi, a senior leader of the movement was arrested last week, setting off the crisis. He was in charge of the Islamic Jihad activities in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip during the 2021 attack by Israeli forces, when during 11 days of fighting at least 260 people were killed Gaza and 13 in Israel. The Islamic Jihad commander killed by Israeli forces, al-Jabari, replaced Bahaa Abu el-Atta who was also killed by Israeli forces in a 2019 attack.Įl-Atta’s killing was the first high-profile assassination of an Islamic Jihad figure by Israeli forces since the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip.Īl-Jabari, 50, was a member of Islamic Jihad’s “military council”, the group’s decision-making body in Gaza. “We are with you on this path until the end, and let Palestine and the Palestinians know that they are not alone,” Major-General Hossein Salami said, adding Israel “will pay another heavy price for the recent crime”. The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Saturday the Palestinians are “not alone” in their fight against Israel. Iran supplies Islamic Jihad with training, expertise and money, but most of the group’s weapons are locally produced.Īlthough its base is Gaza, Islamic Jihad also has leadership in Lebanon and Syria, where it maintains close ties with Iranian officials. “Despite its small size, it has participated in all the confrontations with Israel.” There is a strong order within the party itself,” said Fraihat. “Though it is a small group, Islamic Jihad is very efficient and highly organised. Islamic Jihad is the smaller of the two main Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, and is vastly outnumbered by the governing Hamas group. Palestinian Islamic Jihad was founded in 1981 by Palestinian students in Egypt with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and other areas of what is now Israel. Because of the links to Iran, we are seeing one of the causes of Israel’s attack,” Ibrahim Fraihat from the Doha Institute told Al Jazeera. Islamic Jihad is a very close ally with Iran. It adopts an armed struggle against the Israeli occupation like Hamas. “Islamic Jihad is known to oppose the peace process and the negotiation approach with Israel. While it does not have as long-range rockets as Hamas – the group that governs Gaza, PIJ does have a significant arsenal of small arms, mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles, and an active armed wing called the al-Quds Brigades. Israel has repeatedly launched air raids on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people including a commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement who was targeted on Friday.Īfter bombing Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid described the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as “an Iranian proxy that wants to destroy the state of Israel”.
0 kommentar(er)
