Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian faction with rockets and Iranian backing

Israel killed three senior commanders from Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group, and 10 civilians in surprise strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical officials said.

Following are some facts about Islamic Jihad:

* Founded in the late 1970s by Fathi Shiqaqi and Abdel-Aziz Odeh, Islamic Jihad gained support among Palestinians disillusioned with Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Shiqaqi was assassinated in 1995 in Malta, apparently by Israeli agents.

* The group is sworn to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state spanning what was pre-1948 British Mandate Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

* A recipient of Iranian funding and know-how estimated by Israel to be in the tens of millions of dollars annually, Islamic Jihad has foreign headquarters in Beirut and Damascus and its deployment in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, while more limited than in Gaza, has recently grown.

* Islamic Jihad has the second-biggest armed network in Gaza after that of the enclave’s governing militant group Hamas. Up-to-date figures on Islamic Jihad’s strength are difficult to come by, with 2021 estimates ranging from about 1,000 to several thousand gunmen, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. The group also has a significant arsenal of rockets, mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles. Islamic Jihad does not disclose such information.

* Unlike Hamas, Islamic Jihad has not contested Palestinian parliamentary elections and appears to have no ambition to form a government in Gaza or the West Bank.

* Islamic Jihad is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and European countries.

Source: reuters