Jamal Abu Samhadana (, 8 February 1963 – 8 June 2006), from

Rafah Rafah ( ) is a city in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestine, and the capital of the Rafah Governorate. It is located south-west of Gaza City. In 2017, Rafah had a population of 171,889. Due to the Gaza war, about 1.4 million people from Gaza C ...

in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

, was the founder and leader of the

Popular Resistance Committees The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC; , ''Lijān al-Muqāwama al-Shaʿbiyya'') is a coalition of a number of armed Palestinian groups opposed to what they regard as the conciliatory approach of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah towards Isra ...

, a former

Fatah Fatah ( ; ), formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (), is a Palestinian nationalist and Arab socialist political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...

and Tanzim member, and number two on

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

's list of wanted terrorists. Abu Samhadana survived an Israeli missile strike in the Gaza Strip in December 2004, but was killed by the Israeli Air Force on 8 June 2006.

Appointment as chief of Executive Force

On 20 April 2006, Abu Samhadana was appointed Director General of the Executive Force, a new security forces in Gaza, by Said Seyam, Interior Minister of the Palestinian National Authority's new Hamas-led government. Abu Samhadana was quoted as saying that "We have only one enemy. They are Jews. We have no other enemy. I will continue to carry the rifle and pull the trigger whenever required to defend my people." The appointment "sparked new criticism from the U.S. and Israel and intensified the struggle for control of some 70,000 Palestinian security forces" between Hamas and President

Mahmoud Abbas Mahmoud Abbas (; born 15 November 1935), also known by the Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Mazen (, ), is a Palestinian politician who has been serving as the second president of Palestine and the President of the Palestinian National Authority, P ...

. Abbas subsequently issued a decree banning the formation of the Executive Force that Abu Samhadana was to have headed. However, Hamas defied the President's decree and proceeded with the nomination and the formation of the force.

Assassination

Although Israel acknowledged that Hamas was largely sticking to a ceasefire, on 8 June 2006, he was

assassinated Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

, along with at least three other PRC members, by four missiles fired by Israeli Apache helicopters, guided by Israeli reconnaissance drones, at a PRC camp in

Repercussions of the assassination

At his funeral Samhadana’s supporters called for revenge. Hours after his assassination rockets were fired at

Sderot Sderot (, , ; , sometimes Romanized as "Sederot") is a western Negev city and former development town in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel. In , it had a population of . Sderot is located less than a mile from Gaza St ...

in Israel. The IDF retaliated by bombarding the launch sites on a Gaza beach. During the bombardment period, the civilian Ghalia family was all but wiped out in an

explosion An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume of a given amount of matter associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Explosions may also be generated ...

. Analysts trace the Samhadana assassination to the rocket fire (on Sderot), through a series of IDF shellings, rocket attacks and commando raids on Gaza that killed over three dozen people, mostly civilians, to the capture of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25. Two days after Shalit's capture, the IDF launched

Operation Summer Rains Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

killing over 400 Palestinians and wounding 650.

References

External links

On Patrol with the Killer Israel Dreads
Hala Jaber, ''Sunday Times'', 29 December 2002.

Video

Hamas sets out vision for future
''

BBC News Online BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. It is one of the most popular news websites, with 1.2 billion website visits in April 2021, as well as being used by 60% of the U ...

'', 27 March 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Samhadana, Jamal Abu 1963 births 2006 deaths Palestinian militants Deaths by Israeli airstrikes Assassinated Palestinian politicians People from Rafah Governorate People killed by Israeli security forces Targeted killing by Israel Assassinations in Palestine Asian politicians assassinated in the 2000s Politicians assassinated in 2006 Deaths by explosive device People of the Second Intifada