Former Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah dies

GAZA (QNN) – Former leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, died on Saturday evening after battling illness, Al Manar TV reported on Saturday.

Shallah, 62, served as Secretary General of the movement from 1995 to 2018.

Al Manar did not specify the exact nature of the illness.

“By losing Shallah we have lost a great national man,” said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a statement published by the Palestinian official news agency WAFA.

Shallah was born in Gaza in 1958 and studied in Egypt before earning a PhD in economics in the United Kingdom.

He was elected head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad after the execution of the movement’s former chief, Fathi Shiqaqi, by Israeli commandos in 1995.