Al-Qassam Brigades leader assassinated by Israelis

The Islamic Resistance Movement has confirmed that the second in command of its military wing has been assassinated by Israeli occupation forces. Ahmed Al-Jabari, said a Hamas spokesman, was in a car hit by missiles fired from Israeli aircraft on Wednesday evening in Gaza City. Israeli warplanes targeted two cars; Al-Jabari was driving one of them.

Al-Jabari’s name was linked to almost all military operations carried out by Al-Qassam Brigades in the Gaza Strip, including the capture of serving Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006. Shalit was released in 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. The Al-Qassam leader once said that he hoped to live long enough to see all Palestinian prisoners released by Israel.

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Ahmed Al-Jabari was arrested by the Israeli occupation authorities in 1982 when he was a member of Fatah. During his 13 years in prison he left the secular group and joined Hamas after meeting some of the Islamic Resistance Movement’s founders such as Abd Al-Aziz Rantissi, Nizar Rayyan and Salah Shehadeh. He later married Shehadeh’s daughter.

His involvement in Hamas activities saw him imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for one year from 1998 to 1999. In 2004, Al-Jabari’s eldest son Mohammed, his brother and three of his cousins were killed in an Israeli air strike against the Al-Jabari family home in an apparent assassination attempt against him.