A Hamas armed wing commander who was a right-hand man to Hamas’s chief bomb-maker decades ago was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Shehab news outlet, which is considered close to the terror group.
According to Shehab, Abdul Fattah Amin Maali was a close associate to Yahya Ayyash, one of the founders of the al-Qassam Brigades, the terror group’s armed wing.
Nicknamed the Engineer, Ayyash was known for both developing Hamas’s use of suicide bombings and building many of the explosives used in attacks that took the lives of dozens of Israelis in the early and mid-1990s.
A street sign bearing the name of Yahya Ayyash in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on April 8, 2010. (Issam Rimawi / FLASH90)
He was assassinated by the Shin Bet in January 1996.
Shehab says Maali was deported to Gaza after his release from prison, and had been an al-Qassam commander himself.
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From the Liveblog of
Sunday, December 31, 2023
