Issam Hamza
November 01 1995
The body of Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shqaqi, was flown to Damascus yesterday and was met by the new head of the radical Palestinian group.
Ramadan Abdallah Shallah, making his first appearance after his appointment to replace Shqaqi, was at Damascus airport with other militant Palestinian leaders to pay respects, Shqaqi’s coffin, wrapped in the Palestinian flag, was taken from the chartered Tunisian aircraft to a Damascus hospital where it will stay until the funeral today.
The bearded Shallah has made no statement since Sunday, when he was declared new leader of Islamic Jihad, which is bent on destroying Israel and torpedoing Israel-PLO peace moves. Islamic Jihad has carried out a series of suicide bombings in which scores of Israelis have been killed. Shqaqi was gunned down in Malta while he was on his way to Damascus from Libya, where he sought to persuade Libyan leader Muammar Gaddaii to withdraw his decision to expel thousands of Palestinians.
Israel. restricted the movements of nearly two million Palestinians in the self-ruled Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank on Monday, fearing attacks by Islamic Jihad to avenge the killing of its leader. The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine accused lsrael’s Mossad secret service of gunning down Shqaqi, 43.
Israel declined to say whether it carried out the shooting but called Shqaqi a murderer. At Damascus airport yesterday were Ahmed Jibril, chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), Colonel Abu Musa, leader of the Fatah Uprising who was with Shqaqi in Libya, and Talal Nagi, deputy PFLP-GC chief who was also in Libya.
Shqaqi‘s wife, Fathiya, and other relatives were at the airport. Fathiya Shqaqi, dressed in a long mauve robe, and other Palestinian women, shouted "Death to Israel", "Death to America", and "Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)" as the coffiin was taken to the hospital.