News / Palestine

High-ranking Hamas figure shot, critically injured in Gaza Strip

Tuesday, 09 January 2018 1:15 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 09 January 2018 1:15 PM ]

Senior Hamas leader Imad al-Alami (Photo by Palestinian Safa news agency)

A senior leader of Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, has suffered a serious gunshot wound to his head, and has been hospitalized in critical condition.

Hamas spokesman Fawzy Barhoum said in a statement that Imad al-Alami, a former member of the political bureau of the movement, was wounded on Tuesday morning while “inspecting his personal weapon in his home and is in critical condition.”

Spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Interior and National Security, Iyad al-Bazm, said Alami has been taken to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to receive medical treatment.

Leader of Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar, his deputy Khalil al-Hayya, the movement's political bureau head Ismail Haniyeh, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar as well as members of Hamas political bureau Nizar Awadallah and Salah Bardawil have already visited Alami in hospital.

Alami was born in Gaza City on February 16, 1956, and joined the ranks of Hamas at an early age. He was active in the movement's media work since its foundation.

He was arrested between 1988 and 1990 on charges of spreading anti-Israel rhetoric through the media committee of Hamas, and was expelled from the Gaza Strip in 1994.

Alami lived in exile for nearly 20 years and moved between several Arab countries. He played a major role in supporting the Palestinian cause. He finally returned to Gaza in 2012.

The senior Hamas leader was wounded by Israeli shelling during the Tel Aviv regime’s last military aggression on Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014, and had to have his leg amputated.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in living standards as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

Under the Israeli blockade, about 1.8 million people in Gaza are deprived of their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.

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