Fathi Shaqaqi

Fathi Shaqaqi فتحي الشقاقي
Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine
In office 1981–1995
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Ramadan Shalah
Personal details
Born	Fathi Ibrahim Abdul Aziz Shaqaqi 1951 Rafah, Gaza Strip
Died	26 October 1995 (aged 44) Sliema, Malta
Nationality	Palestinian
Political party	Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine
Children	3
Residence	Damascus, Syria
Alma mater	Birzeit University (B.Math.) Mansoura University (M.D.)
Profession	Mathematician Pediatrician
Religion	Sunni Islam

Fathi Shaqaqi (Arabic: فتحي الشقاقي‎; 1951 – 26 October 1995) was the co-founder and Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine.

Early life and career

Fathi Shaqaqi was born to a refugee family of eight children in the slum of Shubeira in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.^[1][2] His family was originally from Zarnuqa near Ramlah, where they had lived for generations and his grandfather had served as the Imam of the local mosque.^[3] The Shaqaqi family fled Zarnuqa during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War in fear of Israeli massacres, and were not permitted to return.^[3] His mother died when he was fifteen. Fathi Shaqaqi's brother Khalil, after teaching in several universities in the United States, Kuwait and Bahrain, moved after the Oslo Peace Accords to the West Bank and is founding director of the Nablus-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, established in 1993.^[3]

Most of his early education was at the local United Nations school. He attended Bir Zeit University on the West Bank, where he studied physics and mathematics.^[4] In 1970–1974, he taught mathematics at a school for orphans in East Jerusalem. In 1974 he moved to Egypt to study medicine at Mansoura University, specializing in pediatrics. Upon receiving his medical degree in 1981, he worked in a general practice at Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem. He later openend a medical clinic in Gaza.^[1]

Leader of Islamic Jihad

During his studies at Birzeit University Shaqaqi became an admirer of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and founder of Hamas.^[1] While studying medicine in Egypt he was an acquaintance of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, leader of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Salah Sariya, a radical Palestinian executed in 1976 on the charge of having plotted the assassination of President of Egypt Anwar Sadat.^[1] He also became a follower of the ideas of Sayyid Qutb^[1] and Hassan al-Banna.^[2] He also read Marxist literature, including allegedly the entire works of Karl Marx.^[2] The teachings of Qutb, who was executed by President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966 for supposedly plotting an Islamist revolution, convinced Shkaki that the "corrupt and dependent secular governments" of the Arab world had to be replaced by Islamic societies.^[2] Shaqaqi came to believe that the PLO opposition to Israeli occupation was worthless and that only an Islamist movement could achieve any political or military success against Israel.^[2] By the later 1970s Shaqaqi broke with both the Muslim Brotherhood and secular Palestinian nationalist groups, dismayed that the former spoke too little about Palestine and the latter too little on Islam.^[5] Shortly after the Iranian Revolution, Shaqaqi wrote a book "Khomeini, The Islamic Solution and the Alternative", which praised Ayatollah Khomeini and his approach to an Islamic state.^[1][3] In Shaqaqi's view the Khomeini victory "demonstrated that even against an enemy as powerful as the Shah, a jihad of determined militants could overcome all obstacles."^[6] The book sold 10,000 copies in two days.^[7] It was banned by the Egyptian government and Shaqaqi was arrested.

In 1981, along with

• "Palestinians mark 12th anniversary of Fathi Shaqaqi martyrdom" in .wmv

External links

References

• Palestinian political violence

See also

^[15] the group has enjoyed a revival in its military and political strength with increased Syrian and Iranian support, and in some Gaza precincts, Shaqaqi's picture is more prominent than that of the Hamas prime minister.Arab Spring Following the [10] He was succeeded as Secretary-General of the PIJ by fellow co-founder ^[2] Shaqaqi left behind a wife and three children, two boys and a girl.

Legacy

Mossad Director-General Shabtai Shavit was reportedly on the ship from where he personally directed the operation. The Maltese police were only able to identify Shaqaqi's body three days later.

Accounts vary slightly in details. In the Telegraph version by Gordon Thomas, two men, Gil and Ran, arrived in Malta on a late-afternoon flight, after receiving new passports respectively in Rome and Athens from local assistants (sayan), and checked into the Diplomat Hotel where Shaqaqi was staying. Another local sayan provided Ran with a motorcycle, which he told hotel staff he planned to use for touring the island. At the same time, a freighter from Haifa radioed the Maltese harbour authorities that it had developed engine trouble and would need to anchor off the island for repairs. A team of Mossad communications technicians on board sent the agents instructions through a radio in Gil's suitcase. These two kidon then drove up on the motorcycle while Shaqaqi was strolling along the waterfront and one of them, Gil, shot him six times in the head, a 'kidon signature'.^[28] Bergman writes that Shaqaqi was out shopping, and was shot twice in the forehead and once in the back of the head, with a pistol fitted with a silencer and a device to catch the spent cartridges, and that the motorbike in question had been stolen the day before.^[20]

Shaqaqi was gunned down on 26 October 1995 in front of the Diplomat Hotel in Sliema, Malta by a hit team composed of two Mossad gunmen from a Bayonet unit that had previously killed Gerald Bull and Atef Bseiso.^{[19][20][21][22][23]} The assassination happened a few days after Shaqaqi conducted an interview with journalist Ibrahim Hamidi of Al-Hayat Newspaper. Shaqaqi had been travelling under the false name Dr. Ibrahim Ali Shawesh.^[24] He was on his way back from Tripoli after visiting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who promised to help finance Shaqaqi’s factions.^[25] His assassination produced disarray in Islamic Jihad since no competent successor could replace Shaqaqi.^[26] Islamic Jihad sources in Gaza confirmed that Shiqaqi had been traveling from Libya to his home in Damascus and made a stopover in Malta.^[27]

Assassination

^[5] By 1995 it was according to Fisk "perhaps the fiercest of all Israel's modern-day enemies."[18] As the leader of the PIJ, Shaqaqi masterminded several

^[1].Hafez al-Assad President of Syria In 1990 he settled in Damascus under the protection of ^[9].Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and received training from the Hezbollah While in Lebanon the PIJ established a close relationship with the Shia Islamist group [5] Many were recruited from the predecessor of the PIJ, originally known as the ^[12][1] The PIJ recruited former members of militant Palestinian organizations.

[11]