Islamic Jihad terror group buries ex-leader in Damascus

DAMASCUS, Syria — Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad buried its former leader Ramadan Shalah in Syria Sunday, an AFP correspondent said, a day after he died in neighboring Lebanon.

The 62-year-old died in a Beirut hospital before his body was transported to neighboring Syria, a Palestinian source said.

He had been in a coma for more than three years after heart surgery.

Shallah led the Iranian-backed group for over 20 years, after its founder, Fathi Shikaki, was shot dead in Malta in a 1995 attack widely attributed to Israel. In 2018, the group named Shallah’s deputy, Ziad al-Nakhalah, as a new leader.

Ramadan Shallah was on the US “most wanted list” of terrorist suspects with a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

Dozens of mourners, including his successor Nakhala, gathered around his coffin draped in the group’s banner in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, after receiving special permission to gather despite the threat of novel coronavirus.

A funeral procession then headed to a cemetery in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of the capital, where the Palestinian source said Shalah had wanted to be buried if not in his birthplace of the Gaza Strip.

An AFP photographer saw his coffin lowered into a grave.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad has offices in Syria and Lebanon, but most of its activities are focused in the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.

“We pledge to continue the route of resistance until we liberate Palestine with the allies in Syria, Iran and Hezbollah,” al-Nakhalah told the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV during the funeral.

In a statement, Islamic Jihad in Gaza bid farewell to “the great leader whose history… we recall since the founding of the Jihad movement.”

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas paid tribute to Shalah on Saturday night, saying the Palestinian people had “lost a great national figure”, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Earlier Sunday Hebrew media reports cited Palestinian sources and media as saying that Egypt had given permission to transfer Shalah’s body to the Gaza Strip for burial. Gaza shares a border with Israel and Egypt although the two countries coordinate on security concerning the Palestinian enclave.

Former defense minister MK Naftali Bennett, leader of the Yamina party that is now in the opposition, tweeted criticism of the government for reportedly allowing Shalah to be buried in Gaza.

“Why did you approve the transfer of the body of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah for burial in the Gaza Strip. Why not make it conditional on the release of the deceased IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul? Why give our enemies a present for free?”

The Hamas terror group is believed to be hold the remains of the two soldiers who were killed during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge when the IDF battled against Hamas-led Palestinian groups in Gaza.

Shalah was born in 1958 and later traveled to Egypt and Great Britain for his higher studies.

He settled in Syria in 1995 when he became leader of the Islamic Jihad group.

In 2006, the FBI listed Shalah among its “most wanted terrorists,” offering $5 million for information leading to his apprehension.

Alongside its Gaza allies Hamas, Islamic Jihad has fought three wars with Israel since 2008.

Branded a “terrorist” organization by the United States and the European Union, it opposes the peace agreements signed between Israel and the internationally recognized Palestinian leadership.

Last year, the movement took part in several rounds of heavy fighting with Israel. But in recent months it has remained committed to an unofficial truce brokered by regional mediators between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic terror group ruling Gaza.

PIJ previously has taken part in numerous suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks that killed dozens of Israelis.