In September 2007, ISM member Akram Ibrahim Abu Sba’ was killed by members of Islamic Jihad. He was shot twice in the chest in Jenin.
His killing was never condemned by the ISM. They know better than to say anything bad about Islamic Jihad, their erstwhile partners in "resistance" against Israel.
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On April 5, thousands of Palestinians turned out to a Hamas rally to honor the Italian militant. And now he’s dead—a “barbaric murder” and a “vile and irrational gesture of violence on the part of extremists indifferent to the value of a human life,” said the Italian Foreign Ministry. Killed by an al-Qaeda-inspired Salafi group that sees Hamas as too tame and too slow. via sonofhamas.wordpress.com ....Here’s a Google translation of Arrigoni’s comments in his blog on January 21, 2011:
Palestinians and foreign activists hold banners as they take part in a protest against the killing of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, in the West Bank of Ramallah April 15, 2011. Hamas found the body on Friday of the pro-Palestinian Italian activist who was killed by al Qaeda sympathisers in the Gaza Strip, raising questions about the Islamist group's control over the beleaguered enclave.
Michele Alliot-Marie, French Foreign Minister, yesterday in Israel during a press conference expressed [her] solidarity with the soldier Gilad Shalit, the only Israeli prisoner in the hands of the Palestinians.The kidnappers are apparently demanding that Hamas release the leader of their group, or they will kill the Italian. One wonders why they didn’t kidnap a Hamas member. Maybe they feel that Arrigoni is such a big asset to Hamas that he’s worth more than some flunky. Or maybe they’re expecting ransom from the Italian government.
Despite the French minister knows very well that Shalit was taken prisoner during an Israeli attack on Gaza border [false -- Hamas operatives tunneled under the border and attacked an Israeli base -- ed] (and thus is a prisoner of war), it seems yesterday alongside the parents of the soldier spoke of a “war crime” is attributable Palestinians
in the Gaza Strip. Silence on the obvious and real daily Israeli crimes in Gaza.
By virtue of [her] statements and those of [her] silence before the drama of occupied Palestine today via the Erez crossing and entering the Strip, Michele Alliot-Marie has found a well-deserved reception from relatives of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners (many women and children) detained illegally and tortured every day in Israeli jails.
Elder of Ziyon also noticed that some ‘activists’ are already blaming Israel.
Every time you think that Palestinian Arabs can’t be more violent, cruel, or just crazy, something happens to show you that you were wrong.
Did you ever meet a crazy person or group, and realize that you should stay as far away from them as possible? That if you didn’t, their craziness would become part of your life, too? This is what has happened with the Palestinian Arabs — and their supporters. The rest of the world has let them into its life, and boy, are they sorry.
Update [2028 PDT]: It’s being reliably reported that Arrigoni has been found, dead. I guess they didn’t want to wait for the ransom.
via calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com and Fresnozionism.org 14 April '11 image via daylife.com
A peace activist has been found hanged in an abandoned house in the Gaza Strip just hours after he was paraded on YouTube by his abductors.
Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was blindfolded and had been badly beaten before the broadcast. A hand was seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera.
The video, posted just hours after the pacifist was kidnapped, sparked a frantic race against time to track him down before he was killed.
But though Hamas security forces quickly
received a tip-off about his whereabouts in Gaza's Sheikh Rudawan
district, they arrived too late to save him.
PIECE activist: Vittorio Arrigoni - bloodied and bound - in a screengrab from the Jihadist's YouTube videoMr Arrigoni, an Italian, was found lying in a corridor in the deserted house. He was dressed in black, in the same clothes he had been wearing in the video.
Abandoned: Hamas officials guard the house in the Al Karama area of Gaza City where Mr Arrigoni's body was found
'It was hard to see him unless
someone told you he was there because he was laid against the wall on
the floor,' a witness who had been at the scene said.
'There was no sign he was shot. It is believed he was either hanged then laid down, or strangled on the ground.'
Mr Arrigoni had lived in Gaza since August 2008 after arriving on a boat bringing humanitarian supplies.Murdered: Mr Arrigoni's body was found abandoned in a corridor
He
was abducted by an Al Qaeda-linked Jihadist group, who were attempting
to put pressure on Hamas, which runs the enclave, to release its leader
Hesham al-Sa'eedni.
In
the Arabic text that accompanied the YouTube video, his kidnappers
described Italy as 'the infidel state' and said that Mr Arrigoni had
'entered our land only to spread corruption.'
Even
though they demanded the release of their al-Sa'eedni, the group - who
call themselves Monotheism and Holy War - gave Hamas no time to hand him
over.
Instead,
they executed their hostage, who helped Gaza fishermen deal with
Israel's tight maritime blockade, and left his body for the security
forces to find.
Two men have been arrested and others are being sought.
The
scene of the killing in Gaza's Sheikh Rudawan neighbourhood was very
tense. The house where the hostage was killed was still cordoned off as
investigations continued. cordoned off the house.
Mt Arrigoni's abduction and killing has shocked the stricken region, inured as it is
to clashes between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces.
'I
was about to cry when I heard the news. That man quit his family for
us, for Gaza, and now Gazans killed him. That was so bad,' said
supermarket owner Abu Ahmed.
Samira Ali, a teacher, said: 'Those who killed him are not Muslims and certainly not Palestinians.'
Silvia Todeschini, a friend and fellow member of the International Solidarity Movement, worked with Arrigoni in Gaza.
'Victor (Vittorio) worked with the Palestinians, he worked for the Palestinians,' she said.
'He
worked with fishermen, he accompanied fishermen when they were going to
fish, in non-violent interpositions on the maritime limit imposed by
the Israeli navy.
Kill me too: Palestinians and foreign activists carry banners through Ramallah after they heard of Arrigoni's murder
Anger: A protester holds a banner condemning the killing of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza
Popular: Palestinians carry a symbolic coffin decorated with the Italian flag during a ceremony to mourn and denounce the kidnapping and killing Mr Arrigoni'He used to work with farmers when
they used to go to cultivate their lands near the buffer zone with
Israel, the scene of many shooting incidents over the past four years.'
Todeschini said activist friends did not believe it when they were told police had found the body of Arrigoni.
'At the beginning we did not believe it, we thought it was just a joke. But then we saw the video and we believed it.'WELL KNOWN AND WELL LIKED, THE ACTIVIST WITH A PIPE AND A BERET
A peace activist, blogger and occasional freelance journalist, Arrigoni was a well-known figure in Gaza - and well-liked.He was frequently seen clenching a pipe between his teeth and wearing a beret in a likeness to Che Guevara, as well as bracelets in the red, black, green and white colors of the Palestinian flag.Arrigoni was an outspoken critic of Israel, but in an interview in 2008 he also also criticised Muslim extremists for trying to impose a hardline version of Islam in Gaza.He noted the increase in the number of Gazan women wearing Islamic face veils and the fact that young women were barred from participating in public life.Arrigoni had come to Gaza as a pro-Palestinian activist and worked with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which operates in the West Bank and GazaIn 2003, an American ISM activist, Rachel Corrie, was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer in a combat zone in southern Gaza while trying to block its path.A British activist with the group was fatally shot by an Israeli soldier in the same area that year. A third ISM activist, a Palestinian, was shot and killed by Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Jenin in 2007.
'We really know that most of the
Palestinians are not murderers and that they understand that we are here
working for them,' she said.
Arrigoni was the first foreign
national to be abducted in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who
was held for 114 days by an al Qaeda-inspired group named the Army of
Islam. He was released in 2007.
Ehab
Al-Ghssain, spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry, told a news
conference the arrest and questioning of one of the group had led to the
discovery of where Arrigoni was being held.
He
said: 'The forces moved quickly and wisely to the place but found that
the abducted man was killed hours earlier in an ugly manner, according
to the pathologists.'
Ghssain
claimed the abductors recently had rented the house where the body was
found and had used someone else's car to try to conceal their
identities.
He added:
'Their intention from the very beginning was to kill their victim,
because the crime took place after a short period of his abduction,' he
said.
Ghssain said the killing could
jeopardise more solidarity missions such as flotillas that have tried to
run the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza.
International activists plan to sail as many as 15 ships there late next month.
Ghassin
said those responsible for Arrigoni's death had served Israel's
intentions by 'trying to terrorise the people who support the
Palestinian people in Gaza.'
In
Rome, the Italian Foreign Ministry condemned what it called a 'barbaric
murder' and a 'vile and irrational gesture of violence on the part of
extremists indifferent to the value of a human life.'
Journalists
were not allowed to see the body in the morgue and could not
independently confirm the cause of death given by Hamas. An Italian
doctor was on his way from Israel to examine the body, officials said.
Hamas
vehemently opposes Salafists who espouse a more extreme form of Islam
and appear to be attracting recruits - including members of Hamas.
Though
it shares al Qaeda's enmity toward the Jewish state, Hamas has provoked
Salafist anger by forging truces with the Israelis and considering
political deals with secular Palestinian parties.
The
Salafists, who see Hamas as insufficiently zealous in enforcing Islamic
law, have also attacked Internet cafes and want Christians expelled
from Palestine.
Palestinian
and Israeli analysts believe some Gaza-based Salafists are foreigners
who slipped in through the neighbouring Egyptian Sinai.
HAMAS, ITS RIVALS AND THE INSTABILITY OF GAZA
There are half a dozen radical Islamist groups in Gaza with membership numbering in the hundreds. The differences between them are unclear.
Some analysts believe they work in cells to evade Hamas pressure. All want to end Western influence and establish an Islamic state across the Middle East.
Hamas wants a Palestinian state, albeit an Islamic one. It has largely refrained from imposing Islamic law since taking control of Gaza in 2007 and has also condemned al Qaeda attacks in Western cities.
Shock: Friends of Mr Arrigoni's at the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) office in Gaza City were also deeply distressed by his deathHamas, with some 25,000 men under arms, has said its more radical rivals are simply misguided offered them 're-education'.
Distraught: Friends of Mr Arrigoni
mourn at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city after hearing of his death
Palestinian analyst Hani Masri said it was premature to say Hamas has lost control of Gaza.
'Such incidents can happen anywhere,' he said. But this would have an impact on Hamas.
'If Hamas is trying to show an image of moderation and could not get something in return from the international community, this will leave a vacuum for more radical groups, even within Hamas itself,' Masri said.
George Giacaman, political analyst at Birzeit University in the West Bank, saw Arrigoni's murder as 'a tremendous challenge for the authority of Hamas ... a huge embarrassment for them'.
The movement, armed by Iran and shunned as a terrorist organisation by the West, is trying 'to make their authority in Gaza acceptable for the Arabs and foreign countries', he said.
It had succeeded to a certain extent in stopping the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel over the past two years, and it would now be most intent on restoring control with rigour.
But there were risks attached to that course, he said.
Hamas forces in August 2009 killed 28 people, mostly Salafis, in the storming of a mosque where a radical cleric who supported al Qaeda surrounded himself with armed men and declared an Islamic emirate.
'They cannot do that every day,' Giacaman said.
via dailymail.co.uk
