Black Hand (Palestine)

The Black Hand ( _ar. (transliteration) "al-Kaff al-Aswad") was an Islamic resistance organization in the British Mandate of Palestine. It was founded in 1930 and led by Syrian-born Shaykh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam until his death in 1935.

After the failure of the 1921 Syrian revolt that he led, al-Qassam escaped to Haifa and engaged in recruitment and military training of Arab recruits. The group was first composed of clandestine cells, holding no more than 5 to 10 fighters. This organization became known as the Black Hand. At it's peak, it consisted of around 500 to 800 armed forces. In various acts of resistance they targeted Jewish military forces, many of them members of the radical Jewish terrorist organizations, the Haganah, Irugn, and Stern Gang.The group also, in addition to it's armed struggle, engaged in sabotage of illegal Jewish settlements and Jewish military grounds.

Al-Qassam justified his group's military operations as legitimate resistance against Jewish and, later, British occupation. After the 1929 Hebron uprising, The Black Hand intensified it's struggle against Jewish military targets.

On November 20, 1935, after killing a Palestine police officer, al-Qassam was surrounded by British police in a cave near Jenin and killed in a gunbattle along with three of his fighters. Some of The Black Hand's surviving members participated in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.

References

See also

*Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
*Jihad

External links

* [http://www.andrewbostom.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=27&limit=1&limitstart=4 The Legacy of Jihad in Palestine] By Andrew G. Bostom