Fathi Shaqaqi (Arabic: فتحي الشقاقي), alternatively spelled Fathi Shqaqi or Fathi Shiqaqi (1951 – October 26, 1995), was the Palestinian who founded and led the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organisation and was the initiator of suicide bombings.
He formed along with Sheik Odeh (a.k.a. Abd Al Aziz Awda) the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip during the 1970s, initially as a branch of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.[1]
Among Sunnis, Fathi Shiqaqi was the first individual to publish a booklet which legitimated suicide in jihad. He called it sacrifice. Not only the suicide was legitimated but also the operation.[2]
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Fathi Shaqaqi was born in 1951 under Egyptian rule in Gaza, to a refugee family from Jaffa.[3] When Shaqaqi was older he attended college at the West Bank University of Birzeit, located in the Palestine territories, where he studied mathematics. In the 1970s he went on to study medicine in Egypt, and it was here, during his medical training that he became strongly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. He returned to Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) where he practiced medicine in Jerusalem. While in Egypt Shaqaqi was also strongly influenced by the Iranian Islamic Revolution that took place in January 1979, led by Ayatollah Khomeini. Before being kicked out of Egypt he joined the military group known as, Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the early 1980s.[3] Although he had originally been influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, he quickly developed negative feelings. He had expressed numerous times his disappointment for their reformist agenda. He was expelled due to his radical philosophy, and after the assassination of the Egyptian President, Anwar Saadat. Saadat was assassinated by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad on October 6, 1981. It was upon his return to Gaza that he formed, along with Abd Al Aziz Awda (a.k.a Sheik Odeh), a branch of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. This branch is presently known as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
He was shot on October 26, 1995, in front of the Diplomat Hotel in Sliema, Malta, by Mossad. Shaqaqi, travelling under the false name of Dr Ibrahim Ali Shawesh,[4] had come to Malta four times since 1993. He was on his way to Tripoli to visit Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi who was promising to help finance Shaqaqi’s factions.[5]
Two Israeli killers, code-named Gil and Ran, carried out the killing.[5] A man on a motorcycle shot 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 killers escaped on the motorcycle. 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 directed.[5] The Maltese police were only able to identify the corpse three days later. His funeral in Damascus on 1 November 1995 was attended by some 40,000.[6]
Since Shaqaqi's death, Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been led by fellow co-founder Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan Shallah, a.k.a Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, who then joined the earlier listing of fellow PIJ co-founder Abd Al Aziz Awda as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" under United States law on November 27, 1995. Both Shallah and Awda were subsequently indicted on 53 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges, and consequently became two of the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists on February 24, 2006.
Fathi Shaqaqi's brother Khalil Shiqaqi is the director of the Nablus-based Center for Palestinian Research and Studies (CPRS).