Palestinian Christian killed in Gaza

Director of Protestant Holy Bible Society in Gaza found dead on Sunday after being abducted from his home Saturday. Sources in Strip suspect Muslim extremist were behind attack

Reuters|Published: 10.07.07 , 17:09

A prominent Palestinian Christian in the Gaza Strip was found dead on Sunday after being abducted near his home, six months after the religious bookshop he ran was blown up.

There was no claim of responsibility for the killing of Rami Ayyad, director of the Protestant Holy Bible Society but sources in the Strip suspect a Muslim extremist group was behind the attack.

Sources said anonymous men have recently been threatening Ayyad, demanding he stop selling Christian religious books in the Gaza Strip.

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Medical officials in the Hamas-controlled territory said he had been stabbed repeatedly. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry condemned the killing.

Neighbors said unknown assailants seized Ayyad, 31, on a street near his home in Gaza City late on Saturday. His body was later found elsewhere in the city.

Ayyad's mother, Anisa, said her son had telephoned his family after he was seized.

"He said he was going to be with the 'people' for another two hours and that if he was not back (by then), he would not be returning for a long, long time," she said. "Rami redeemed Christ with his blood. Rami redeemed the Bible with his blood."

Last April, an explosion at the Holy Bible Society in Gaza City blew out windows and ignited a fire that burned shelves of Christian religious texts and pamphlets. Police said a bomb caused the blast.

Attacks against Christian sites in the territory are rare but at least 40 Internet cafes and video cassette shops have been blown up in the past year.

Many of the bombings were claimed by "The Righteous Swords of Islam", a little-known group opposed to what it described as violations of Islamic tenets.

Some 3,000 Christians live among 1.5 million Muslims in the Gaza Strip, territory that Hamas Islamists seized in fighting against the secular Fatah faction in June.

Relations between Muslims and Christians in the Gaza Strip have generally been good.

"This crime will not pass unpunished and the ministry has opened an investigation," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.