A file photo for Abu Salmiah with his baby child

Moatesem Al-Meniawi, IOL Correspondent

GAZA CITY, September 21 (IslamOnline.net) – His family was forced by the Zionist gangs to leave its house in 1948 along with thousands of Palestinian families. Fifty-six years on, Khaled Abu Salmieh was assassinated by Israeli occupation forces, but his life was always the product of actions that were never his own making.

The senior military leader of Ezzudin Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was born in 1969 in Al-Shate’ refugee camp inGaza City to a poor, displaced Palestinian family.

Over attacks by Israeli occupation forces, his eight-member family left Al-Mejdal town in the then Palestine to settle in the refugee camp.

Abu Salmieh received his primary and secondary education in Gaza before he joined the faculty of commerce in the Islamic University.

Hunted by both Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian security forces, the father of two had to drop out.

Abu Salmieh survived an Israeli air strike on a football pitch in eastern Gaza September 7, in which 14 members of Hamas were killed.

He was assassinated Saturday, September 19, in an Israeli raid on his car in Gaza, which also injured six Palestinian civilians including a 9-year-old child.

Brave Heart

His funeral

Abu Salmieh was well known for his bravery and support for the oppressed and the needy, as described by his intimate friend Abdul Salam.

“He was a lion-hearted man, who feared nothing,” bereaved Abdul Salam told IslamOnline.net Monday, September 20.

He has been dying for martyrdom through fighting the Israeli occupation forces, he added.

“He was loved by everyone. He was looking for martyrdom and he finally got it,” added his brother.

“My brother was sincere and modest. He used to feel for others’ sufferings and was compassionate with his next of kin.”

His skill in producing explosive devices and Qassam rockets put him on the occupation’s black list.

“Abu Salmieh was a leading member in the explosives unit of Al-Qassam Brigades,” his resistance colleague Abu Eisa told IOL.

“He has been wanted by Israel for 14 years,” he added. “Abu Salmieh never died as he passed his experience to the younger generations, who would follow in his footsteps.”

Hamas responded immediately to the killing of its senior leader, shelling the southern occupied Negev town of Sderot with Qassam rockets and firing mortar shells at several Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

It further pledged anew a volcano of revenge for the continued assassination of its leaders, chiefly its spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abdel Aziz Al-Rantissi.