By Stan Goodenough
Jul 01, 2007
Terrorists belonging to Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades were sent into eternity by the Israeli Air Force in two separate strikes on the Gaza Strip Saturday evening.
In total seven men were killed in rocket attacks carried out against two cars three hours apart, the first in Khan Yunis in the south of the strip; the second in the central part of Gaza.
Among the Fatah casualties were the head of the Al-Aqsa Brigade’s central Gaza command, Salah Quffa, and his son.
The Islamic Jihad’s "martyrs" were reportedly in the final stages of planning a “suicide” bombing against Israeli targets. They included a terrorist who fired an RPG at an IDF unit in southern Gaza three years ago, killing five soldiers, a member of the group’s rocket manufacturing unit, and a senior commander in the southern Gaza Strip.
Fatah is the PLO faction under the leadership of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who has permitted the Al-Aqsa Brigade to carry out numerous terrorist attacks against Jews without censure or any effort to close them down.
Fatah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist groups all have what they call their armed wings, created primarily to enable the leaders of the mother organizations to deny their direct involvement in terrorist attacks.
This cynical ploy is thought to have been adopted from the Irish Republican Army, which for years succeeded in portraying itself as two separate entities – Sinn Fein and the IRA – in order to effectively employ violence to promote its aims, and get away with it.