Salah Shehade

Salah Shehade was born in Gaza on February 24, 1953, and was associated with Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip.[1][2] His educational ambitions initially extended to medicine and engineering: he obtained admission to universities in Turkey and Russia, but financial circumstances prevented him from pursuing those opportunities.[1] He subsequently studied at the Higher Institute for Social Service in Alexandria.[1]

Before entering Hamas’s leadership, Shehade worked in social services, first as a social worker and later as a supervisor of social affairs in Arish.[1] Following Israel’s return of Sinai to Egypt under the peace treaty, he transferred to a social-affairs supervisory position in Gaza.[1] In 1982, he resigned from that position and joined the student-affairs department at the Islamic University in Gaza, where he began radical Islamist activities.[1] His background also included student leadership, preceding his emergence as one of Hamas’s founders and the head of its military wing.[6]

By 1983, Shehade led al-Mujahideen, a commando group established under Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and tasked with attacking Israeli military targets.[2] This organization and another secret unit, al-Majd, smuggled weapons into Gaza and helped create the foundations of Hamas’s later military wing.[2] Shehade’s work with Yassin thus preceded the formal establishment of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and involved both clandestine organization and the acquisition of weapons.[2]

Shehade was a close associate of Yassin and a former cellmate of the Hamas leader.[2] Israeli security forces detained him during the 1980s, and his imprisonment interrupted his organizational activity.[1][2] Following the capture of al-Majd leaders Shehade and Yahya Sinwar, Hamas established Unit 101 under Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, giving the new unit a mandate to kidnap Israeli soldiers.[2] That development placed Shehade within a succession of secret organizations whose functions included acquiring weapons, attacking military targets, and organizing kidnappings.[2]

A 1992 account published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs dates the military section’s origins to 1982 and describes Shehade as its head until the end of 1989.[7] The account suggests that after his arrest the military arm apparently operated from Jordan and possibly through messengers from Israeli prisons, without specifying the date or circumstances of that arrest.[7] Other biographical material describes a secret military apparatus called the “Palestinian Jihad Fighters,” created by Shehade and Yassin and forming a basis for Hamas and its military wing in December 1987.[1]

Shehade was among Hamas’s founders when the movement emerged during the Intifada.[6] Hamas gave December 8, 1987, as its establishment date and was publicly announced on December 14, shortly after the uprising began.[6] His position combined an early connection to Yassin with responsibility for the movement’s armed structures, rather than a role confined to public political activity.[1][2]

Yassin tasked Shehade with establishing the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a responsibility that Shehade subsequently confirmed during interrogation.[8] The brigades were established in 1991, with Shehade identified as their first commander.[2] His selection reflected his education, charisma, and ability to recruit and motivate fighters.[2] His status as a founder and commander of the brigades was also recognized in a subsequent U.S. government description of Hamas’s organization.[9]

Shehade’s periods in detention were followed by renewed involvement in Hamas’s military organization.[1] He was arrested in 1988 on accusations of establishing a cell, training people in weapons use, and ordering attacks.[1] Later reporting describes detention by Israel, subsequent Palestinian Authority custody, and release by the Palestinian Authority at the beginning of 2000.[10] After his release in 2000, he resumed command of Hamas’s military wing.[1]

His relationship with Hamas’s political leadership remained an important part of his position.[3][10] Initially described as a liaison between the political and military levels, he later came to be regarded by Israeli officials as responsible for the military wing’s operations.[10] He remained a close aide to Yassin and maintained regular contact with Hamas leaders abroad.[11] These connections accompanied his command responsibilities within Gaza, rather than replacing his involvement in the military apparatus.[1][11]

During the two years preceding his death, Shehade played a central role in developing Hamas’s military infrastructure.[1] His activities included helping establish field command, acquiring advanced weapons, and collecting money from Islamic organizations abroad.[1] The weapons effort included locally manufactured and smuggled anti-tank missiles.[1] Israeli security assessments associated him with much of Hamas’s activity in Gaza, through either planning or approval.[1]

Israeli security officials linked Shehade to hundreds of attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces.[1][12] Among the specific operations attributed to him were the January 9, 2002, attack on the IDF post known as “Africa,” in which four soldiers were killed, and the March 7, 2002, attack at Atzmona, in which five students were killed.[1] Later reporting likewise connected him to the Africa outpost and Atzmona attacks, identifying the Atzmona victims as students at a pre-military academy.[11] These assessments made him a high-priority Israeli target, and he was reported to be at the top of Israel’s most-wanted list.[12]

Shin Bet officials characterized Shehade as one of Hamas’s more extreme members and said that he rejected calls from moderates to limit suicide attacks.[12] An Israeli inquiry later found that he had been directly involved in planning and carrying out deadly attacks and described him as a driving force behind Hamas’s ideology and operations.[13] Its assessment of his operational importance formed part of its examination of the decision to strike him in July 2002.[13]

A participant’s account of Israeli counterterrorism decision-making, published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, attributes planning of the Dolphinarium discotheque attack to Shehade and states that 21 teenagers were killed in that attack.[14] The account also says that he was preparing a “mega-attack” when Israel sought to kill him.[14] These statements describe the participant’s understanding of the threat and the decision-making process, rather than a separate judicial finding about Shehade’s responsibility.[14]

In May 2002, Shehade publicly explained the relationship between Hamas’s political and military structures: “the political apparatus is sovereign over the military apparatus, and a decision of the political [echelon] takes precedence over the decision of the military [echelon], without intervening in military operations.”[3] His formulation assigned ultimate authority to the political leadership while distinguishing that authority from the conduct of particular operations.[3] Public remarks by Shehade and Yassin were subsequently cited in a U.S. government account explaining that the military wing implemented policies set by the political wing.[9]

In an interview conducted by Islam Online on May 29, 2002, Shehade described a four-part process for selecting suicide-attack perpetrators.[15] The criteria he identified were religious observance, family circumstances, ability to carry out the assigned task, and whether the act would encourage further operations.[15] He also described surveillance of prospective targets and their review by Hamas military bodies.[15] The surviving excerpts were reproduced in English translation, with the translation credited to the Middle East Media Research Institute.[15]

Asked about Israeli civilians, Shehade asserted that Hamas did not target children, elderly people, or schools, and said, “If we kill a child it is not intentional.”[15] He described potential targets as including settlements, military posts, and military vehicles.[15] These were his public claims about Hamas’s targeting practices, not an independent assessment of the organization’s conduct.[15] His account of candidate selection and target review nevertheless provided a public description of the internal procedures that he said governed suicide operations.[15]

An Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on the Gaza City building where Shehade was staying with his family shortly after midnight in July 2002; approved sources variously date the strike to July 22 or July 23.[13][16] Israeli intelligence had determined that he was in the residential apartment building before it was struck.[17] Hamas confirmed his death and that of his senior assistant, Zaher Nassar.[16]

The strike also killed civilians and injured many others in the densely populated surrounding area.[4][13] A later Israeli inquiry named Shehade’s wife, Layla, his 15-year-old daughter, Iman, and another Hamas figure, rendered in the report as Zahar Natzer, among those killed in the house.[13] Overall, the inquiry reported that thirteen uninvolved civilians, mostly women and children, were killed.[13]

The Israeli government publicly apologized following the civilian deaths.[4] On July 23, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher expressed deep regret over the civilian deaths in the previous night’s action and said that Washington had conveyed its position to the Israeli government.[18] He reiterated U.S. opposition to targeted killings and criticism of heavy weaponry in densely populated areas because of the danger to civilians.[18] Asked about U.S.-origin weapons, he said that no report under the Arms Export Control Act had been made regarding Israeli actions since the current violence began, while describing the issue as receiving continuing attention.[18]

Shehade’s organizational legacy lay in his role in building Hamas’s military apparatus, from the clandestine units associated with Yassin to the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.[2] His death was subsequently listed among the Israeli targeted eliminations of Hamas leaders.[6] The loss of leaders such as Shehade required Hamas to develop the capacity to replace commanders and repair organizational damage inflicted by Israeli operations.[6] His image also appeared in later Hamas propaganda imagery, including a depiction of a figure holding his photograph.[19]

The strike became a prominent subject of investigation into the relationship between targeted killing, military necessity, and civilian protection.[5][13] A special Israeli investigatory commission was established in January 2008, during Ehud Olmert’s premiership, to examine the killing and its civilian consequences.[5] Its original chairman was former military advocate general Tzvi Inbar, who died during the commission’s term.[5] Retired justice Tova Strasberg-Cohen was appointed to replace him in March 2010.[5]

The commission concluded that Shehade posed a “certain, immediate and significant” threat to Israeli citizens.[13] It found that the Shin Bet’s designation of him as a target was professional, rested on concrete information, and was consistent with Israeli and international law.[13] On that basis, it characterized the operation as a legitimate targeted killing intended to end his activity.[13] Its assessment of the target was distinct from its conclusions about the unexpectedly extensive civilian harm caused by the operation.[13]

Alternative methods had been considered during planning.[13] The commission reported that some were rejected because their chances of success were uncertain, because Shehade changed houses, or because a ground operation in a densely populated neighborhood would expose Israeli forces or civilians to excessive danger.[13] It also reported that the attack had been aborted twice because Shehade’s daughter was present at the proposed time.[13] The commission found no less-lethal alternative that would have avoided excessive risk to Israeli forces, and considered the use of a one-ton bomb legitimate in the circumstances anticipated by the planners.[5]

At the same time, the commission found that the civilian harm actually caused was disproportionate to the benefit of killing Shehade.[5] It attributed the unexpectedly severe consequences, particularly deaths in nearby structures, to incomplete, unfocused, and inconsistent intelligence, together with errors of assessment and judgment.[13] Its findings distinguished the civilian damage expected when the attack was authorized from the substantially greater damage that occurred.[5] The participant account published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs similarly describes intelligence about people in nearby buildings as wrong.[14]

The commission concluded that the consequences for uninvolved civilians had been unintended and unforeseen by the officials concerned.[13] It found no criminal offense under Israeli or international law and recommended no personal measures against those involved.[13][20] Its recommendations instead emphasized systemic improvements, including better intelligence-transfer procedures and closer scrutiny of operational decisions.[13] Further recommendations included training security personnel in Israeli and international law and in the principle of proportionality.[21]

International litigation developed alongside the Israeli examination.[17][22] In a U.S. civil case against Israeli official Avi Dichter, surviving victims alleged that the attack was unlawful because civilians were known to be in the building.[17] The United States acknowledged that it had voiced serious objections to the attack but expressly declined to take a position in its filing on the operation’s lawfulness.[17] It argued that Dichter was immune from suit for official acts and that the complaint did not state a valid federal cause of action.[17] The suit was dismissed at the outset in May 2007.[10]

In Spain, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights pursued a complaint on behalf of families of civilian casualties.[22] A chronology published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs dates the complaint to June 2008, the opening of a judicial investigation to 2009, and its revocation by an appeals court to June of that year.[22] The Spanish proceedings invoked universal jurisdiction and concerned allegations of crimes against humanity against Israeli officials.[10] A Spanish judge named seven Israeli officials in the investigation.[23]

In April 2010, the Spanish Supreme Court upheld closure of the investigation.[22][24] It concluded that Israeli authorities had conducted a substantive and genuine investigation and had supplied extensive documentation.[24] The earlier suggestion that the bombing could constitute a crime against humanity remained an allegation considered during the proceedings, not a conviction.[24] The closure also reflected the Spanish court’s acceptance that Israel had undertaken a credible, independent examination.[5]

The wider Israeli legal framework for targeted killings developed separately from the commission’s factual review of this operation.[25] In its December 14, 2006, judgment in HCJ 769/02, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel v. Government of Israel, the Supreme Court held that targeted killings could not be classified in advance as invariably prohibited or invariably permissible.[25] Each operation required individual assessment, strong and convincing information concerning direct participation in hostilities, efforts to minimize civilian harm, proportionality, and an independent investigation afterward.[25] That judgment’s general standards did not themselves adjudicate the Shehade strike.[25]

The strike’s civilian toll and proportionality generated protests and legal complaints, including complaints in Britain alleging war crimes by Israeli commanders.[26] Public opposition included a “pilots’ letter,” while then-Air Force commander Dan Halutz’s response to criticism—“When I release a bomb, I feel a slight tremor in the wing. And that’s all”—became part of the controversy.[26] The Israeli commission found the actual civilian harm disproportionate but concluded that the anticipated harm had been substantially lower and that no criminal wrongdoing had occurred.[5][13]

Published casualty figures are inconsistent: the Israeli commission reported thirteen uninvolved civilians killed, while the U.S. human-rights report recorded fourteen other Palestinians, including nine children, killed alongside Shehade.[5][4] Other accounts report fifteen bystanders and more than 100 injured, while another reports fourteen civilians and about 100 injured; the reports do not consistently explain whether all totals include Shehade or how victims were classified.[27][28] Accounts also use both July 22 and July 23 for the strike.[13][16] The available material does not resolve those differences.[27][28]

Biographical chronologies likewise differ on his first release from Israeli detention: one account gives a 1985 prisoner exchange, while another gives a 1984 arrest followed by release in 1986.[2][1] Claims linking him to particular attacks derive principally from Israeli security assessments and participant accounts; the translated interview excerpts convey his own assertions about Hamas’s conduct.[1][14] Those different kinds of evidence should not be conflated with independent judicial findings.[14][15]