General
What Is Palestinian Islamic Jihad?
Israel’s killing of a young commander of the local branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank city of Tulkarm is shining a spotlight on the group. Here’s a closer look. What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad? Formally titled the Islamic Jihad …
Israel’s killing of a young commander of the local branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank city of Tulkarm is shining a spotlight on the group.
Here’s a closer look.
What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad?
Formally titled the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, the group was founded in the Gaza Strip in the 1980s to fight the Israeli occupation. It has a presence in both Gaza and the West Bank, and dominates the part of Tulkarm that was founded as a refugee camp for Palestinians displaced in the wars surrounding the foundation of Israel.
Like Hamas, it is a Sunni Muslim group, though far smaller. And also like Hamas, the group receives funding and weapons from Shiite Muslim Iran, in pursuit of their shared anti-Israel ideology. Israel, the United States and the European Union consider both groups to be terrorist organizations.
The U.S. Counterterrorism Center says Palestinian Islamic Jihad has also received support from Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The U.S. State Department in 2022 put the group’s membership between 1,000 and several thousand.
Who heads the organization?
Ziyad al-Nakhalah has led the group’s leadership council since 2018. Mr. al-Nakhalah was staying in a guesthouse room next to Ismail Haniyeh, formerly a top leader of Hamas, when Mr. Haniyeh was assassinated earlier this month by a bomb in Tehran.
What is its mission and philosophy?
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the group “wants to reestablish a sovereign, Islamic Palestinian state,” and views “the Arab-Israel conflict as an ideological war, not a territorial dispute.” Palestinian Islamic Jihad opposes a two-state solution.
