Who Was Raed Al-Attar?
Raed al-Attar, 40, was killed early Thursday morning (August 21, 2014) in a joint IDF-Shin Bet operation in Rafah, along with two other senior military commanders from the Izz a-Din al-Qassam wing of Hamas.
Al-Attar was involved in the 2006 abduction of former IDF soldier Gilad Shalit at an Israeli army outpost near the Kerem Shalom crossing. He remained involved in Shalit’s captivity for the next five years, until the soldier was freed in 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Arab terrorists held in Israeli prisons.
Al-Attar — who headed a Hamas military unit in Rafah — was also responsible for the recent abduction and suicide bombing murder of IDF Givati Lt. Hadar Goldin during Operation Protective Edge. The terrorist’s Rafah unit killed at least two other soldiers during the attack in which Goldin was abducted, and attacked and wounded a number of other IDF soldiers as well.
An IDF soldier was killed in 1994 attack in which al-Attar was involved; by 2002, he was planning attacks, and an IDF outpost near Kerem Shalom was the target of one of his plots. Four soldiers were killed.
Al-Attar was known most recently for his engineering and supervision of the construction of tunnels that ran from Gaza into Israeli territory. He was an extremely dangerous man, a wily and sophisticated terrorist, and an irreplacable commander in Hamas.
But he is dead.
