Hamas terror chief handed 54 life terms for intifada attacks
Ibrahim Hamed, Islamists’ West Bank ‘military chief,’ orchestrated series of bloody suicide bombings
A military court on Sunday sentenced convicted Hamas terrorist Ibrahim Hamed to 54 life sentences for his complicity in the murder of 46 Israelis in bombing attacks.
Last month, Hamed, the former commander of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank during the second intifada, was convicted for his role in some of the most murderous bombings of the second intifada, among them the bombing at Jerusalem’s Café Moment in March 2002.
After the conviction was announced, Hamed’s lawyer, Saleh Hamid, said his client — who refused to testify during the trial — did not acknowledge the Israeli court’s authority over him.
Other suicide bombings planned by Hamed include the December 2001 attack on Zion Square in Jerusalem; the May 2002 attack on the Sheffield club in Rishon Lezion; the bombing at the Frank Sinatra cafeteria at the Hebrew University in June 2002; and the attack at Cafe Hillel in September 2003 in Jerusalem.
Hamed, 47, a native of the Palestinian town of Silwad near Ramallah, became a Hamas functionary in the late 1980s. In 2001 he was released from a Palestinian Authority prison and began planning the lethal series of suicide attacks. He was arrested in 2006 by Israeli authorities following a protracted manhunt. In 2003 Israel demolished his home and deported his wife and children to Jordan.
The 54 life terms — a sentence requested by the prosecution — related to the 46 murders in which he was implicated, and eight counts of attempted homicide.
