GAZA // Thousands of people turned out for the funeral on Saturday of a senior Palestinian militant who Hamas allege was shot by Israel.
Mazen Fuqaha, who was from the occupied West Bank, was shot several times on Friday near his home in the Gaza Strip. The killers used silencers, said senior Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq.
“Hamas and its (military wing) hold (Israel) and its collaborators responsible for this despicable crime ... (Israel) knows that the blood of fighters is not spilled in vain and Hamas will know how to act,” said a Hamas statement.
Khalil Al-Haya, Hamas’s deputy chief in the Gaza Strip said only Israel would have had something to gain from the death.
Fuqaha, 38, was one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners that Israel released in 2011 in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Gaza militants had held captive or five yeas after abducting him in a cross-border raid.Israel jailed Fuqaha in 2003 for planning attacks against Israelis and sentenced him to nine life terms. On his release he was exiled to Gaza, where Israeli media said he continued to plan attacks.
Cross-border violence between Gaza militants and Israel has largely died down since a 2014 war in which militants launched thousands of rockets into Israel.
Militants from small extremist Salafi groups have continued to fire an occasional rocket into Israel from Gaza despite the efforts of Hamas to rein them in but Israel says it holds Hamas responsible and responds with air strikes and tank fire.
* Reuters
