Gaza: A local Salafist leader was shot dead in Gaza City on Tuesday during a confrontation with Hamas police and security officials who went to arrest him, the interior ministry said.
The incident occurred in the northern Shaikh Radwan neighbourhood with the interior ministry identifying the gunman as 27-year-old Youssuf Al Hatar, a local leader of a group of Islamist extremists known as Salafists.
According to ministry spokesman Eyad Buzum, the security forces had gone to his home in the morning to arrest him for unspecified “illegal activities.”
But Al Hatar tried to flee, firing on the forces as he went. He tried to blow himself up with a suicide vest but was shot dead before it detonated, Buzum told AFP.
He had also “tried to booby-trap his house,” the spokesman said.
“Security forces barricaded the house and then intense clashes erupted,” witnesses told AFP, some of whom identified Al Hatar as being a member of a group affiliated with Daesh.
Inside the building, security forces found a number of weapons including “explosive belts, explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades,” Buzum said.
Pictures of the weapons were posted on the ministry’s Facebook page.
Hamas, the de facto power in Gaza, has in recent months been waging a harsh crackdown on Salafist groups operating in the enclave following a series of unclaimed bomb attacks.
