NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC
Hatem Moussa/ AP – In this August 29, 2008 file photo, international activist Vittorio Utmpio Arrigoni, from Italy, holds his passport during a protest against the Israeli siege on Gaza, in Gaza City
By Joel Greenberg,
JERUSALEM — A pro-Palestinian activist from Italy who had been abducted by an extremist group in the Gaza Strip was found strangled to death early Friday, the first such slaying of a foreigner in the coastal territory ruled by the militant group Hamas.
The body of Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was discovered by Hamas security forces in an empty house in Gaza City a day after he had been seized, officials said. Arrigoni had been strangled with a plastic handcuff strip, said Khalil Abu Shamala, director of Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights, who went to the scene with security officials. He said Arrigoni’s head was bloodied, apparently from being beaten before he was killed.
“It seems that he was subjected to torture,” Abu Shamala said in a telephone interview. “I have seen many bodies during the intifada and after assassinations by Israeli soldiers, but I was totally shocked when I saw the way they killed him.”
An al-Qaeda-inspired group calling itself al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or Monotheism and Holy War, had asserted responsibility for the abduction. The group’s leader, Sheik Abu Walid al-Maqdisi, was arrested last month by Hamas. The group — which affiliates itself with the Salafi branch of Islam — threatened to kill Arrigoni unless Maqdisi and other imprisoned members of the organization were freed.
A YouTube clip posted Thursday by the abductors showed Arrigoni blindfolded and bloodied near his right eye, his head held up to the camera by one of his captors grabbing his hair.
An accompanying text said: “The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption.” It described Italy, which is majority Catholic and the home of Vatican City, as “the infidel state.”
The kidnappers had set a deadline of 5 p.m. local time Friday for their leaders’ release. But Arrigoni was killed hours before that. Medical findings indicated that Arrigoni was slain in the early morning, apparently when his captors learned that Hamas police were preparing to close in on their hideout, security officials said.
A member of the extremist group who had been arrested and interrogated disclosed the abductors’ location, according to a spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry.
The spokesman, Ehab al-Ghussein, denounced the killing as “a crime that does not reflect the values, morals, religion and customs” of the people of Gaza.
Arrigoni, who was also a blogger and wrote for an Italian newspaper, spent various amounts of time in Gaza during the past 21 / 2 years, his associates said. In 2008, he arrived on a boat bringing humanitarian supplies that Israel allowed through despite its naval blockade on Gaza. He last returned to the area a year ago, through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
He was active in the International Solidarity Movement, a group that documents and tries to nonviolently disrupt Israeli military actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He accompanied fishermen challenging Israeli-imposed boating limits off the Gaza coast; and escorted farmers entering their land in an off-limits zone along the border, created by Israel in response to militant attacks and enforced by the Israeli Army.
Salafism is inspired by Wahabi Islam, the fundamentalist version of Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia. Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, as its name implies, incorporates Salafi religious beliefs into armed struggle.
The group, and other Salafi jihadist factions, have challenged Hamas in Gaza, denouncing it for halting rocket attacks against Israel under cease-fire arrangements, and for participating in the past in governments with the secular Fatah movement as part of the Palestinian Authority.
The Salafis have accused Hamas of failing to strictly enforce Islamic law and have attacked Internet cafes, which they view as purveyors of decadent Western culture.
More than a dozen foreign correspondents and aid workers were abducted in Gaza before Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007, but all were released unharmed, usually within hours or days. The last to be kidnapped was Alan Johnston, a correspondent for the BBC, who was held for 114 days by jihadist captors before being freed under heavy pressure from Hamas shortly after its takeover.
greenbergj@washpost.com
The body of Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was discovered by Hamas security forces in an empty house in Gaza City a day after he had been seized, officials said. Arrigoni had been strangled with a plastic handcuff strip, said Khalil Abu Shamala, director of Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights, who went to the scene with security officials. He said Arrigoni’s head was bloodied, apparently from being beaten before he was killed.
“It seems that he was subjected to torture,” Abu Shamala said in a telephone interview. “I have seen many bodies during the intifada and after assassinations by Israeli soldiers, but I was totally shocked when I saw the way they killed him.”
An al-Qaeda-inspired group calling itself al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or Monotheism and Holy War, had asserted responsibility for the abduction. The group’s leader, Sheik Abu Walid al-Maqdisi, was arrested last month by Hamas. The group — which affiliates itself with the Salafi branch of Islam — threatened to kill Arrigoni unless Maqdisi and other imprisoned members of the organization were freed.
A YouTube clip posted Thursday by the abductors showed Arrigoni blindfolded and bloodied near his right eye, his head held up to the camera by one of his captors grabbing his hair.
An accompanying text said: “The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption.” It described Italy, which is majority Catholic and the home of Vatican City, as “the infidel state.”
The kidnappers had set a deadline of 5 p.m. local time Friday for their leaders’ release. But Arrigoni was killed hours before that. Medical findings indicated that Arrigoni was slain in the early morning, apparently when his captors learned that Hamas police were preparing to close in on their hideout, security officials said.
A member of the extremist group who had been arrested and interrogated disclosed the abductors’ location, according to a spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry.
The spokesman, Ehab al-Ghussein, denounced the killing as “a crime that does not reflect the values, morals, religion and customs” of the people of Gaza.
Arrigoni, who was also a blogger and wrote for an Italian newspaper, spent various amounts of time in Gaza during the past 21 / 2 years, his associates said. In 2008, he arrived on a boat bringing humanitarian supplies that Israel allowed through despite its naval blockade on Gaza. He last returned to the area a year ago, through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
He was active in the International Solidarity Movement, a group that documents and tries to nonviolently disrupt Israeli military actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He accompanied fishermen challenging Israeli-imposed boating limits off the Gaza coast; and escorted farmers entering their land in an off-limits zone along the border, created by Israel in response to militant attacks and enforced by the Israeli Army.
Salafism is inspired by Wahabi Islam, the fundamentalist version of Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia. Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, as its name implies, incorporates Salafi religious beliefs into armed struggle.
The group, and other Salafi jihadist factions, have challenged Hamas in Gaza, denouncing it for halting rocket attacks against Israel under cease-fire arrangements, and for participating in the past in governments with the secular Fatah movement as part of the Palestinian Authority.
The Salafis have accused Hamas of failing to strictly enforce Islamic law and have attacked Internet cafes, which they view as purveyors of decadent Western culture.
More than a dozen foreign correspondents and aid workers were abducted in Gaza before Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007, but all were released unharmed, usually within hours or days. The last to be kidnapped was Alan Johnston, a correspondent for the BBC, who was held for 114 days by jihadist captors before being freed under heavy pressure from Hamas shortly after its takeover.
greenbergj@washpost.com
