Zuhair al-Qaisi ( ar, زهير القيسي; 1963 – 9 March 2012), also known by his '' nom de guerre'' Abu Ibrahim, was the secretary general of the

Popular Resistance Committees The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) ( ar, لجان المقاومة الشعبية, ''Lijān al-Muqāwama al-Shaʿbiyya'') is a coalition of a number of armed Palestinian groups opposed to what they regard as the conciliatory approach of t ...

in Gaza. He was killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). al-Qaisi was a member of the

since their establishment in 2000. The Popular Resistance Committees were one of three organizations responsible for the capture of

Gilad Shalit Gilad Shalit ( he-a, גלעד שליט, Shalit.ogg, ''Gilˁad Šaliṭ'', born 28 August 1986) is a former MIA soldier of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who on 25 June 2006, was captured by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid via tu ...

. Interviewed regarding Shalit's capture and imprisonment, al-Qaisi is said to have stated that "Israel has tried to pressure us by killing a large number of activists following the abduction, but the resistance and the Palestinians have held their ground". According to the IDF, though the claim is denied by the PRC, al-Qaisi was one of the masterminds of the

2011 southern Israel cross-border attacks On August 18, 2011, a series of cross-border attacks with parallel attacks and mutual cover was carried out in southern Israel on Highway 12 near the Egyptian border by a squad of presumably 12 militants in four groups. The attacks occurred a ...

in August 2011, in which eight Israelis were killed. Following this attack, the

IDF IDF or idf may refer to: Defence forces * Irish Defence Forces * Israel Defense Forces *Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006 * Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917 Organizations * Israeli Diving Federation * Interac ...

killed the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees, Kamal al-Nirab, and al-Qaisi was appointed his successor. On January 14, 2012 an explosion at al-Qaisi's home, in

Rafah Rafah ( ar, رفح, Rafaḥ) is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip. It is the district capital of the Rafah Governorate, located south of Gaza City. Rafah's population of 152,950 (2014) is overwhelmingly made up of former Palestini ...

killed one member of his family, Khalid al-Qaisi, and wounded five others. Zuhir al-Qaisi himself was not at home at the time. On 9 March 2012, al-Qaisi was killed in a missile strike by IDF aircraft, while driving his Opel car in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood west of Gaza. His son-in-law, Mohammed Ahmed al-Hanani, a resident of Beit Furik near Nablus, was also killed in the attack, and a third man was seriously injured. The killing of Hanini was, according to the Egyptian ambassador to Ramallah Yasser Osman and a Hamas spokesman, in violation of the terms of agreement in the Shalit prisoner swap. The government and the Israeli security establishment justified the targeted assassination by explaining at the time that al-Qaisi had been planning a terrorist attack against Israel that was in the final stages of preparation. Sources among the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza say that they had been tipped off a month earlier that Israel was planning to kill him. Zvi Bar'el, writing for '' Haaretz'', argued that the escalation was seen as good for Israel and that the events in Gaza were part of a plan to 'sell' an Israeli attack on Iran. ''

Al-Hayat Al-Hayat ( ar, الحياة meaning "Life") was a London-based, pan-Arab newspaper owned by Saudi Prince Khalid bin Sultan, that had a circulation estimated over 200,000. It was the newspaper of record for the Arab diaspora and the preferred v ...

'', surveying several possible reasons for the attack, argued that 'marketing the

Iron Dome Iron Dome ( he, כִּפַּת בַּרְזֶל, Kippat Barzel) is a mobile all-weather air defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. The system is designed to intercept and destroy short- ...

' project and testing Hamas's military capabilities played some role in Israeli defence calculations for the killing.

Neve Gordon Neve Gordon ( he, ניב גורדון; born 1965) is an Israeli professor and academic. He is a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of LondonShany Littman: he, הם הובילו כאן תנועות שמאל, ...

, surveying the opinions of several analysts in the Israeli press, cites, among others,

Maariv ''Maariv'' or ''Maʿariv'' (, ), also known as ''Arvit'' (, ), is a Jewish prayer service held in the evening or night. It consists primarily of the evening ''Shema'' and '' Amidah''. The service will often begin with two verses from Psalms ...

's Ofer Shelah for the view that statements by the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak gave the impression that Qaisi's assassination was not directly preemptive, since Barak explicitly said that what al-Qaisi was planning, and where the attack was to be launched, and whether an imminent attack had been foiled, was not clear, and that the attack was more about

deterrence Deterrence may refer to: * Deterrence theory, a theory of war, especially regarding nuclear weapons * Deterrence (penology), a theory of justice * Deterrence (psychology) Deterrence in relation to criminal offending is the idea or theory that t ...

. Gordon also reports that several commentators argued that the assassination had been planned well in advance, the ambush itself being prepared a week beforehand, and that its execution had been delayed until Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from his diplomatic visit to Washington,

Purim Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Book ...

festivities had passed, and the weather had cleared up. As a response to the targeted assassination, a barrage of rockets was launched from Gaza, resulting in the

March 2012 Gaza–Israel clashes Operation Returning Echo (מבצע הד חוזר) was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military operation in the Gaza Strip from March 9 until March 14, 2012. It was the worst outbreak of violence covered by the media in the region since the 2 ...

. Yossi Klein, writing in Haaretz, argued that people in Tel Aviv were sceptical of the stories given out by government spokesmen and concluded that:-

The death of Zahid al-Kaisi met the criteria of cost-benefit analysis well. A few days of fear in Sderot are a small investment that will bring a big profit in terms of punishment and deterrence. Yossi Klein
When the missiles rain on Tel Aviv''
Haaretz, 15 March 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Qaisi, Zuhir al- 1963 births 2012 deaths Deaths by Israeli airstrikes Palestinian Islamists Palestinian militant commanders Assassinated Palestinian politicians People murdered in the Palestinian territories