- Fathi Shaqaqi
Fathi Shaqaqi, alternatively spelled Fathi Shqaqi or Fathi Shiqaqi, (1951 – 1995) was the Palestinian who founded and led the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organisation and the initiator of
suicide bombing s.He formed along with Sheik Odeh (aka
Abd Al Aziz Awda ) the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in theGaza Strip during the 1970s, initially as a branch of theEgyptian Islamic Jihad .Among the Sunni’s, Fathi Shiqaqi was the first individual who published a booklet which legitimized, for the first time the justification of suicide in jihad. He called it sacrifice. Not only the suicide was legitimized but also the operation, he drew the line between prohibited suicide and martyrdom.He was shot in 1995 in front of the Diplomat Hotel in
Sliema ,Malta , by Mossad. Shaqaqi, travelling under the false name of Dr Ibrahim Shaweshi, had come to Malta four times since 1993. He was on his way to Tripoli to visit Libyan leaderMuammar al-Gaddafi who was promising to help finance Shaqaqi’s factions.A man walked up to Shaqaqi as he was returning to his hotel and shot him in quick succession with a gun equipped with a silencer and a container to hold the used cartridges. Shaqaqi’s assassins had smuggled a motorcycle into Malta which they used to escape with after shooting the Palestinian leader. Abandoning the motorcycle, a third individual drove them to the Msida Marina from where they most probably boarded a fast boat which took them out at sea and eventually to a large ship from where the whole operation was probably directed. The Maltese police were only able to identify the corpse three days later. His funeral in
Damascus on 1 Nov. 1995 was attended by some 40,000.Fathi Shaqaqi's brother
Khalil Shiqaqi is the director of theNablus -basedCenter for Palestinian Research and Studies (CPRS).After Shaqaqi's 1995 death, Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been since led by fellow co-founder
Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan Shallah, aka Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, who then joined the earlier listing of fellow PIJ co-founder Abd Al Aziz Awda as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" underUnited States law onNovember 27 ,1995 , and both Shallah and Awda were subsequently indicted on 53RICO charges, and consequently became two of the "FBI Most Wanted Terrorists " onFebruary 24 ,2006 .External links
* [http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/personalities/alpha_s.htm#s26 Bio of Fathi Shiqaqi] from the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Jerusalem
* [http://217.218.67.244/presstv/071026/OUTPUT_21-00-00-SNG-ASHRAF-GAZA.wmv "Palestinians mark 12th anniversary of Fathi Shaqaqi martyrdom"] in.wmv
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
