DAMASCUS (AP) – A commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group was killed in Syria on Sunday in what Israeli agents described as an assassination.
The al-Quds Brigades, the Islamic Jihad group’s military wing, said in a statement that 31-year-old Ali Ramzi al-Aswad was killed Sunday morning in rural Damascus in a “cowardly assassination by bullets bearing the fingerprints of the Zionist enemy.” “, referring to Israel.
There was no immediate statement from Israel on Sunday about the alleged killing.
Islamic Jihad said in a statement that Aswad’s family was displaced from Haifa in 1948 and settled in refugee camps in Syria, where he joined the organization as a young man.
In 2019, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the home of Akram al-Ajuri, a member of the Islamic Jihad leadership, who lives in exile. Ajuri was not injured, but her son was killed in the attack.
Airstrikes on residential areas in Damascus last month that Syrian officials said killed at least five people were attributed to Israel. An Islamic Jihad official warned Israel that “there will be a decisive response to any assassination attempt against resistance leaders without delay.”
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-held areas of Syria in recent years, including attacks on airports in Damascus and Aleppo, but has rarely acknowledged or discussed the actions.