Palestinian infamous for 2000 lynching of soldiers in Ramallah killed in Gaza strike
Photo of Aziz Salha displaying his blood-soaked hands to mob was a defining image of the Second Intifada; IDF says he was targeted in Deir al-Balah
The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet said in a statement Thursday that they had killed Aziz Salha, a Palestinian man infamous for his role in the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah in 2000, in an airstrike in Gaza.
The brutal killing of the two soldiers in the first weeks of the Second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, deeply shocked Israeli society, and the image of Salha proudly displaying his blood-soaked hands to a mob was a defining moment in the long history of violent conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
News of his death was first reported by Palestinian media and later confirmed by Israel. The IDF said Salha, 43, was targeted in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
Reservist soldiers Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Norzhic were killed in October 2000 after they took a wrong turn and ended up in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah in the West Bank.
They were seized by PA police and taken to a police station, but that station was then overrun by a mob angry over the recent deaths of Palestinians in violent clashes with the army.
The two Israeli men were viciously beaten and stabbed to death and their bodies were mutilated.
Several men were eventually arrested and imprisoned by Israel for their part in the lynching.
Salha was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004 for his role in the murder of Norzhich, but was released in 2011 as part of the controversial prisoner exchange deal for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped and held by the terror organization Hamas in Gaza.
The IDF and Shin Bet said that Salha had been involved in advancing terror attacks in the West Bank from Gaza in recent years.
Israel has been continuing its strikes on terror targets in the Gaza Strip as part of the ongoing war there, which broke out with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that saw thousands of terrorists break through the border and kill some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnap 251.
The release of some 1,000 terrorists in 2011 as part of the Shalit deal came under greater scrutiny following the October 7 attacks. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the massacres, was one of the many prisoners with blood on their hands who were freed in that agreement.
On Wednesday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck Hamas command centers embedded in disused schools in the Gaza Strip, as Palestinian media reported that some 20 people were killed and dozens more were injured in the strikes.
The military said that two of the command centers were located in schools in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, while a third was embedded in a compound in central Gaza that had previously served as the Nuseirat Girls’ School.
Accusing Hamas of using the schools as a base to plan and carry out “terror attacks against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel,” the military said that the strikes had been guided by pinpoint intelligence.
It said that it had taken steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strikes, and accused Hamas of “systematically” using civilian sites for terror.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that more than 40,000 people have been killed in the Strip throughout the last year of war between Israel and Hamas, although the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israel has said that it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
As of August, Israel said it had killed some 17,000 combatants in battle in Gaza, and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war.
Also on Wednesday, Israeli tanks were said to have advanced in areas of Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave. Palestinian media reported that the tanks carried out a raid on several areas in the east and center of the city, before partially retreating.
The Hamas-run health ministry said that some 51 people had been killed in the raids, and at least 82 were said to have been injured. The IDF did not immediately comment on the reports.
Residents in the Khan Younis area reported that heavy airstrikes had accompanied the raids into three neighborhoods in the city.