GAZA CITY: A leader of a Salafist group that has claimed a spate of rocket attacks on Israel in recent days was among three Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza, sources said on Sunday.
Shaikh Hesham Al Saedini, 43, also known as Abu Al Waleed Al Maqdisi, one of the founding members of Salafist group the Mujahideen Shura Council, was killed in a strike late on Saturday on the north Gaza town of Jabaliya, Palestinian security sources said.
Fellow Salafist Fayek Abu Jazar, 42, died with him as they rode a motorbike. Two other people, one of them a 12-year-old boy, were wounded.
A second air strike early on Sunday killed Yasser Mohammad Al Atal, 23, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the sources said. One other person was wounded.
Born in Egypt but a Jordanian national, Al Saedini was considered one of the most important Salafist leaders in Gaza. Al Saedini was detained by Hamas following the kidnap and murder of Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni last year but was released in August following Jordanian intervention.
Saedini was one of the top Salafist militants in Gaza who founded the Mujahedeen Shura Council, a Salafist coalition put together in late 2008 which has claimed a spate of rocket attacks on Israel in recent days.
There was no immediate reaction from the group to Saedini’s death, with his funeral expected to take place in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza at noon.
The latest wave of tit-for-tat violence began on October 7 when an Israeli air strike on Rafah critically wounded two Salafist militants, one of whom later died. Another eight people were injured, among them five children.
A day later, the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad unleashed a barrage of fire at southern Israel.
