GAZA: Israeli air strike kills Gaza security chief Jamal Abu Samhadana, along with three other Palestinians in the missile attack outside the southern town of Khan Younis.

Record ID: 377943

  • Title: GAZA: Israeli air strike kills Gaza security chief Jamal Abu Samhadana, along with three other Palestinians in the missile attack outside the southern town of Khan Younis.
  • Date: 9th June 2006
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF BODY OF JAMAL ABU SAMHADANA BEING CARRIED INTO HOSPITAL
  • Embargoed: 24th June 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA6FRNIZC6ZJLAOO7SDN3OY79LR
  • Story Text: Israel killed a Palestinian security chief in an air strike on a Gaza Strip militant training camp on Thursday (June 8), witnesses said, the first death of a Hamas government appointee at the hands of Israeli forces.
    Jamal Abu Samhadana, a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militant group who doubled as Interior Ministry supervisor, died along with three other Palestinians in the missile attack outside the southern town of Khan Younis.
    An Israeli military spokeswoman said the after-dark strike targeted a PRC training camp rather than anyone specific. But the Palestinian government described it as an assassination.
    Abu Samhadana topped Israel's wanted list for his role in a more than 5-year-old Palestinian armed revolt. The PRC was also suspected in the bombing of a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Gaza in 2003 which killed three Americans. It denied involvement.
    Abu Samhadana's appointment in April to the Interior Ministry, which oversees Palestinian security forces, angered President Mahmoud Abbas, who had been struggling to salvage peacemaking with Israel since Hamas assumed power a month prior.
    An Islamic group sworn to the Jewish state's destruction, Hamas crushed Abbas's more moderate Fatah faction in January elections but has struggled to govern after Western countries and Israel imposed economic sanctions.
    "This is a new Zionist crime and the Zionist enemy's way is to target heads of Palestinian factions and forces. This is surely a dangerous development and the Israeli occupiers are solely responsible for this, and it is a clear message to the Palestinian people - that the occupation insists on dealing in the language of blood and murder and terrorism with our people and this only increases our sense of unity," said Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri.
    Though he hailed from Fatah, Abu Samhadana enjoyed good relations with Hamas, thanks largely to his reputation as a military leader and survivor of several Israeli air strikes.
    He would patrol Rafah, his hardscrabble hometown in southern Gaza, wearing khaki fatigues. On Thursday, thousands of Rafah residents mobbed the hospital where his body was being held and bore it through the streets weeping and screaming for revenge.
    An official from the Palestinian Interior Ministry, Khaled Abu Hlal, told a news conference in Gaza that Israel would bare the consequences of this killing.
    "The Israeli occupation bears full responsibility for all the repercussions and retaliations that will take place as a result of this heinous crime," said Abu Hlal.
    A coalition of militant groups, the PRC has played a leading role in cross-border rocket from Gaza since Israel withdrew from the coastal territory last year after 38 years of occupation.
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