Palestinian Islamic Jihad -
Or the The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (Arabic: حركة الجهاد الإسلامي في
فلسطين, - Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami fi Filastīn or al Jihad al Islami) (PIJ) is an
Islamist
Palestinian militant group, designated by the United States, the European Union,
the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia and Israel. Their goal is the
destruction of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamist state as
enunciated by their founding leader, Fathi Shkaki.
ref
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad emblem shows two fists extending from the
"Mosque of Omar" (Dome of the Rock) in Jerusalem, with an overlay of a map of
all of
Mandatory Palestine
in the foreground and two rifles in the background. The military wing of
the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is the Al Quds brigades.
Palestinian Islamic
Jihad is primarily interested in a
Jihad
for destroying Israel, but it also opposes many other Arab governments, whom
they see as being insufficiently Islamic and too Western. Palestinian Islamic
Jihad has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Israel,
including suicide bombings. Palestinian Islamic
Jihad is among those responsible for the Qassam rocket and mortar barrages
at Israeli towns that have killed and injured civilians, and cause widespread
hardship in communities in Israel's western Negev.
Palestinian Islamic
Jihad is a small organization with under a thousand members and enjoys the
support of 3-5% of the Palestinian population. It is evidently a protege of Iran
at present and is funded by Iran through the
Hezbollah. Islamic Jihad also reportedly distributed funds or salary to
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
and commissioned them to carry out an attack on Kibbutz Metzer inside Israel.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is one of the major constituents of the
Popular Resistance Committees.
Their current relation to
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
is not known, though the group was founded in Egypt as a branch of the Egyptian
Islamic Jihad and banished from there.
It is noteworthy that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, originally a
Sunni
Muslim organization with possible links to Al-Qaeda,
has evidently been coopted by the
Shia
Iranian regime, or at least cooperates with it and is supported by it, as well
as by the supposedly secular Syrian Ba'ath
regime.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad has a cooperative-antagonistic-competitive
relationship with the
Hamas
which currently rules Gaza. At times the Hamas opposed or appears to oppose the
group, while at other times the groups cooperate in attacks on Israel.
History of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Palestinian Islamic
Jihad was founded about 1979 by three radical Palestinian students, Fathi
Shikaki, Abdul Aziz Odeh (or Awda or Ouda), and Bashir Moussa, studying in Egypt. They
formed the group because the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan)
in the
Gaza
Strip was too moderate. In 1981 the Egyptian government expelled Palestinian Islamic
Jihad from the country when it learned that the organization was closely linked
to the assassins of President Anwar Sadat. At that point, PIJ relocated to the
Gaza Strip, where it initiated a new round of terrorist activities.
In 1988, Shikaki and Odeh were banished from Gaza and went to Lebanon. Once
there, Shikaki reorganized and strengthened his group's ties with Hezbollah. PIJ
continued its terror campaign, attacking a tour bus in Egypt in 1990, killing 11
people, including 9 Israelis.
According to one source, Ramzi Yousef, who carried out the 1993 attack on the
World Trade Center in New York, was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,ref
though others insist that the group has not carried out any attacks on U.S. soil
as yet. ref
Both
PIJ and Hamas rejected the 1993 Oslo Accords as a betrayal of Palestinian and
Islamic rights, and they appear to have begun cooperating after 1993. They
launched attacks against Israeli targets in a “race” (Shiqaqi’s own word) to
halt the peace process.
In October 1995, the founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shkaki, was killed in Malta,
possibly by Israeli
agents. He was replaced by Ramadan Abdallah Shallah, a Palestinian who had
lived in the United States. Shallah had allegedly founded the World Islam
Study Enterprise in the USA, along with Sami Al-Arian, Mazen al Najjar, and Khalil Shikaki In
March 1996, the organization claimed responsibility for suicide
bombings in Tel Aviv that killed 20 people and wounded more than 75.
By
2000, PIJ had killed several dozen Israelis, mostly civilians. While it refused
to recognize the Palestinian Authority as a legitimate government and did not
participate in the 1996 PA elections, Islamic Jihad did not challenge the PA
politically in the same manner as did Hamas. However, it was easier for the PA
to take strong measures against the Islamic Jihad, as the smaller organization,
and it closed al-Istiqlal, the Jihad newspaper in Gaza, and arrested some
low-level activists.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad is one of the constituent members of the
Popular Resistance Committees.
Major attacks of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
January 22, 1995 |
Beit Lid |
21 |
Two bombers. One detonated at rescue party. |
March 4, 1996 |
Tel Aviv |
13 |
+125 injured. Done on Purim, presumably to commemorate
Goldstein Massacre of Purim 2005. |
January 30, 2001 |
Taibe |
2 Injured |
|
May 25, 2001 |
Hadera Central bus station,
|
45 injured |
2 terrorists in car bomb |
April 22, 2001 |
Kfar Saba |
1 |
|
July 16, 2001 |
Binyamina |
2 |
3 more were injured critically |
August 9, 2001 |
Jerusalem Sbarro Pizzeria Bombing |
15 |
With
Hamas |
August 12, 2001 |
Wall-Street Restaurant bombing, Kiryat Motzkin |
14 injured |
|
October 7, 2001 |
Kibbutz
Shluhot |
1 |
|
November 29, 2001 |
Wadi Ara Junction |
3 |
Carried out together with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades |
December 5, 2001 |
Hilton Mamilla, Jerusalem |
11 injured |
|
December 9, 2001 |
Check Post Junction near Haifa, |
29 injured |
|
January 25, 2002 |
Tel Aviv |
23 injured |
Double suicide attack, together with Fatah |
March 20, 2002 |
Wadi Ara ,Muzmuz Junction Egged Bus 823 |
5 |
|
March 27, 2002 |
Netanya Passover Massacre |
30 |
Suicide attack in
Passover Seder ceremony in Park Hotel |
April 10, 2002 |
Yagur Junction bombing |
8 |
|
June 5, 2002 |
Egged Bus 830, Meggido Junction |
17 |
Car Bomb |
September 5, 2002 |
Um el Fahm Junction in
Wadi Ara |
1 |
|
October 21, 2002 |
Karkur Junction, Egged Bus 841 |
14 |
2 Suicide bombers used a bomb jeep with 100 KG TNT |
March 30, 2003 |
London Cafe, Netanya |
54 injured |
|
May 19, 2003 |
Afula Mall (?) |
3 |
Attributed to
Hamas |
June 1, 2003 |
Moshav
Sdei Trumot
S |
1 |
|
July 7, 2003 |
Kfar Yavetz |
1 |
|
October 4, 2003 |
Haifa |
21 |
|
February 25, 2005 |
Stage club, Tel Aviv sea boardwalk |
5 |
With Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades |
July 12, 2005 |
Netanya |
5 |
|
August 28, 2005 |
Beer Sheva |
50 injured, 2 critically |
Carried out together with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades |
October 26, 2005 |
Hadera |
6 |
|
December 5, 2005 |
Netanya |
5 |
|
December 25, 2005 |
Tulkarm |
3 |
Suicide bomber kills IDF soldier and 2 Palestinians at
checkpoint. |
January 19, 2006 |
Tel Aviv |
15 injured |
|
April 17, 2006 |
Tel Aviv |
11 |
with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades |
January 29, 2007 |
Eilat |
3 |
With Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades |
March 6, 2008 |
Gaza |
1 |
kill IDF soldier in ambush. |
Numerous mortar and rocket attacks.
IDF has killed numerous Islamic Jihad commanders and operatives.
Ami Isseroff
November 4, 2008
Synonyms and alternate spellings: "Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine"
"Palestine Islamic Jihad"
Further Information: Recent history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Second Intifada
Palestinian Groups - Islamic Jihad
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