An Israel Defense Forces strike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday killed Aziz Salha, who gained global notoriety for a video of him lynching two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah’s twin city of el-Bireh on Oct. 12, 2000.
The images of Salha standing at a window in the Palestinian Authority’s el-Bireh police station, waving his blood-soaked hands in front of an Arab mob during the early days of the Second Intifada, became etched into the collective Israeli psyche, and for many remains a direct consequence of the Oslo Accords.
IDF Cpl. (res.) Vadim Norzhic, 33, a truckdriver from Or Akiva who had made aliyah from Irkutsk 10 years earlier, and Sgt. First Class (res.) Yosef Avrahami, 38, a toy salesman from Petach Tikvah, were pulled from their vehicle and beaten and stabbed to death, and then mutilated, after accidentally entering the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah, located in the Judaean Mountains some 10 km. north of Jerusalem.
Salha, 43, was arrested a year later but was among the 1,027 Arab terrorists released from Israeli jails as part of the 2011 deal to free IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
Salha was targeted in an airstrike in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, the military said.
“In recent years he was involved in directing terrorist activity in Judea and Samaria and continued to engage in terrorist activity even in these past days,” the IDF said.
