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Photo: Reuters
One of the suspects Namer al-Salfiti

Hamas captures suspects in Italian activists death

Gaza security forces exchange gunfire with Salafists suspected in murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni. Hamas says it arrested two militants after shootout

Hamas says they arrested two militants suspected in the slaying of an Italian activist last week, after a shootout in Gaza, while a third committed suicide rather than be taken.

 

Ihab Ghussein, Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, said police stormed the house Tuesday evening after a fierce firefight.

 

One of the militants threw grenades at his two associates, wounding them, and then shot himself to death.

 

Five Hamas policemen were injured as well as girl who was caught in the crossfire.

 

Members of the Hamas security forces had surrounded a building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip in the operation to capture the al Qaeda sympathizers believed to have killed Vittorio Arrigoni, found strangled on Friday.

 

A jihadist Salafist group inspired by al Qaeda abducted Arrigoni on Thursday and threatened to execute him unless their leader, detained by Hamas last month, was freed.

 

A statement from the Hamas-run Interior Ministry declared the area a closed security zone "because of the suspicion of the presence of the fugitives". Roads leading to the four-storey building were blocked by the security forces.

 

Hamas is vehemently opposed to Salafists who espouse a more radical form of political Islam and appear to be attracting recruits, including from among its own ranks.

 

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry had posted pictures on its website of three suspects sought in the killing. A security source said they included a Jordanian national.  


Suspects' photos released by Hamas

 

Detainee dies during interrogation

Meanwhile, Hamas reported Tuesday that a detained Palestinian died shortly after he was interrogated by the militant group in the Gaza Strip.

 

The Hamas interior ministry says 52-year-old Adel Rizk died on Tuesday in a hospital after falling ill during his interrogation. It didn't indicate the cause of death or say why Rizk was detained.

 

Moean Rizk says his brother Adel was healthy when Hamas arrested him last week.

 

He says Adel had been arrested several times since Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007 and accused of passing information about the coastal strip's Islamist rulers to the rival Palestinian government in the West Bank

 

Arrigoni, 36, had lived in Gaza since arriving in 2008 aboard a humanitarian aid boat that Israel had admitted despite imposing a blockade on the territory. The security forces are already holding two suspects.

 

Hundreds of Palestinians took part in a symbolic funeral for Arrigoni on Monday.

 

AP and Reuters contributed to this report

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.19.11, 16:53
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