| Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام |
|
|---|---|
| Leader | Mohammed Deif |
| Founder | Salah Shehadeh |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Headquarters | Gaza |
| Ideology | Palestinian resistance, Sunni Islamism, religious nationalism , Palestinian nationalism |
| Website | |
| qassam.ps | |
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Arabic: كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام; named after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, often shortened to Al-Qassam Brigades) is the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist fundamentalist socio-political organisation Hamas. Created in 1992, under the direction of Yahya Ayyash, the primary objective of the group was to build a coherent military organisation to support the goals of Hamas, which was at the time concerned with blocking the Oslo Accords negotiations. From 1994 to 2000, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades carried out a number of attacks against both Israeli soldiers and civilians.
At the beginning of the Second Intifada, the group became a central target of Israel. The group's strength and its ability to carry out complex and lethal attacks surprised many observers. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades operated several cells in the West Bank, but most of them were destroyed by 2004 following numerous Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) operations in the region. In contrast, Hamas retained a forceful presence in the Gaza Strip, generally considered its stronghold.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union,[1] the United States,[2] Australia[3] and the United Kingdom.[4]
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The fighters' identities and positions in the group often remain secret until their death; even when they fight against Israeli incursions, all the militants wear a characteristic black hood on which the group's green headband is attached. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades operate on a model of independent cells and even high-ranking members are often unaware of the activities of other cells. This allows the group to consistently regenerate after member deaths. During the al-Aqsa intifada, the leaders of the group were targeted by numerous airstrikes that killed many members, including Salah Shahade and Adnan al-Ghoul. The current leader of the brigades, Mohammed Deif, remains at large and is said to have survived at least five assassination attempts.[5]
The group is named after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, an Arab militant in the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1930 al-Qassam organized and established the Black Hand, an anti-Zionist and anti-British militant organisation.[6]
The transition into a recognized militant organization began during the establishment of the Oslo Accords to assist HAMAS efforts in blocking them.[7] In 2003 and 2004, the brigades in Gaza resisted IDF incursions, including the siege of Jabalya in October 2004. However, these battles took a heavy toll in the brigade's ranks, which suffered heavy losses. The group, however, continued to gain strength and remained capable of carrying out attacks in the following years. The brigades can count on a huge pool of recruits, an important logistical organization which supplies the militants with weapons smuggled in Rafah using tunnels, and talented engineers who provide the fighters with homemade weapons such as the al-Bana, the Batar, the Yasin and the Qassam rocket.
In early 2005, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades appeared to stand by a truce negotiated between the Palestinian Authority and the government of Israel. However the brigades took advantage of the truce to regroup, while some militants continued to launch periodic mortar and Qassam rocket barrages toward Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Following Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades staged several rallies in which they displayed thousands of fighters and an assortment of weaponry in Gaza. These celebrations ended abruptly when, on September 23, twenty Palestinians were killed as a car carrying Qassam rockets exploded among a dense crowd. Since this incident, the brigades refrained from staging public displays of force as well as launching attacks at Israel, which, in turn, refrained from targeting Hamas members in assassinations and raids. Despite occasional and brief flare-ups of violence, the brigades generally respected this truce until the beginning of June 2006. The Palestinian Authority has been, during this period, under intense pressure from Israel and the international community to disarm Hamas, but fears of heavy resistance from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and a possible civil war, coupled with a victory of the movement in the 2006 legislative elections, prevented any such attempts. As a result, it is widely believed that the brigades stockpiled thousands of homemade weapons and projectiles during 2005 and 2006 and were actively attempting to rebuild their destroyed cells in the West Bank.
In May 2006, a police force was formed in Gaza, consisting of thousands of brigade fighters. It aimed to restore law and order in the city but instead broke out into clashes with Fatah militias. On June 10, 2006, after the Gaza beach blast in which seven civilians died, the brigades announced a cessation of the truce with Israel. In the following hours, they claimed responsibility for launching Qassam rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, and threatened to step up their attacks.
In June and July 2006, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades were involved in the operation which led to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and in the subsequent heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip following Operation Summer Rains, launched by the IDF. It was the first time in over 18 months that the brigades were actively involved in fighting against Israeli soldiers. As of May 2007, the brigades acknowledged they lost 163 fighters during the operation.[8]
Since its establishment in December 1987, the military capability of the brigades has increased markedly, from rifles to Qassam rockets and more.[9]
The brigades have a substantial weapons inventory of light automatic weapons and grenades, improvised rockets, mortars, bombs, suicide belts and explosives. The Brigades fire Qassam rockets and mortar shells into Israel on a regular basis. The group engages in military style training, including training which take place in Iran and Syria on a range of weapons designed to inflict significant casualties on civilian and military targets.[10]
Israel evaluates at 10,000 the number of fighters now in the brigades, and claim they receive extensive training as well as more sophisticated weapons, including long-range rockets (180mm, 127mm, 122mm , 107mm) as well as guided anti-tank such as Kornet, RPG-29, RPG-7 with PG-7VR tandem-warhead rockets, AT-5 , anti-aircraft gun such as dozens of DShK, KPV heavy machine gun, and anti-aircraft missiles such as SA-16, SA-24, and Stinger.[11]
According to a statement by CIA director George Tenet in 2000, Hamas has pursued a capability to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals.[9] There have been reports of Hamas operatives planning and preparing attacks incorporating chemicals. In one case, nails and bolts packed into explosives detonated by a Hamas suicide bomber in a December 2001 attack at the Ben-Yehuda street in Jerusalem were soaked in rat poison. In another case, Hamas operative Abbas al-Sayyid received a large quantity of cyanide which he intended to insert into the explosive belts worn by suicide bombers.[9]
On September 3, 2005, after Israel's withdrawal from settlements in the Gaza Strip, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam revealed for the first time the names and functions of its seven commanders on its website as well as in a printed bulletin distributed to Palestinians.[12] Most of the information published, including pictures of three leaders, was reportedly already known by Israel's intelligence services. According to the bulletin, the current leaders of the brigades are:
On July 12, 2006, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) bombed a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, where Mohammed Deif, Ahmad al-Ghandur and Raid Said were meeting. The three-story house was completely leveled, killing Hamas official Nabil al-Salmiah, his wife and their five children, but the 3 leaders of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades all escaped with moderate wounds.[13]
On July 12, 2006 In the early morning hours Israeli aircraft blasted a house where high-level Hamas leaders were meeting. Deif survived the blast, but severely injured his spine, which could leave him paralyzed . According to some unnamed Palestinian sources, Deif's condition is very serious, with him becoming a quadruple amputee as a result.
On 6 September 2006, Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd reported that Deif was captured by Egyptian authorities while attempting to enter Egypt to get health care for injuries caused by the Israeli attack in July.
On 1 January 2009, Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas leader who served as a liaison between the Palestinian organization's political leadership and its military wing, was killed in an Israeli Air Force strike during Operation Cast Lead.[14] The day before the attack, Rayan had advocated renewal of suicide attacks on Israel, declaring, "Our only language with the Jew is through the gun".[15] A 2,000-pound bomb was dropped on his house, also killing his 4 wives (Hiam 'Abdul Rahman Rayan, 46; Iman Khalil Rayan, 46; Nawal Isma'il Rayan, 40; and Sherine Sa'id Rayan, 25) and 11 of their children (As'ad, 2; Usama Ibn Zaid, 3; 'Aisha, 3; Reem, 4; Miriam, 5; Halima, 5; 'Abdul Rahman, 6; Abdul Qader, 12; Aaya, 12; Zainab, 15; and Ghassan, 16).[16][17][18][19][20]
On January 3, 2009 Israeli aircraft attacked the car in which Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, a leader of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam armed wing, was traveling. He subsequently died of the wounds suffered in the bombing.[21]
On January 4, 2009 the Israeli Air Force struck and killed in Khan Yunis two senior Izz ad-Din al-Qassam leaders, Hussam Hamdan and Muhammad Hilo, both of whom the Israelis blamed for attacks against Israel. According to Israeli authorities Hussam Hamdan was in charge of rocket attacks against Beersheba and Ofakim, while Muhammad Hilo was reportedly behind Hamas' special forces in Khan Yunis.[22]
On January 15, 2009, the Israeli Air Force bombed a house in Jabaliya, killing a prominent Qassam Brigades commander named Mohammed Watfa (the strike targeted the Palestinian Interior Minister Said Seyam, who was also killed).[23]
On July 30, 2010, one of the leaders Issa Abdul-Hadi Al-Batran, aged 40, was killed at Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike.[24]