A senior Palestinian resistance official has been assassinated alongside around 30 others during a massacre committed by the Israeli regime as part of Tel Aviv’s ongoing war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.

Various resistance media outlets reported the development on Saturday, identifying the official as Asa'd Abu Sharia, aka Abu al-Sheikh, secretary-general and co-founder of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement.

The movement, itself, confirmed the development in a statement, noting that the victim also used to head the group’s military wing, the Mujahideen Brigades. It also identified another one of the bloodletting’s victims as Ahmed Abu Sharia, aka Abu Falasteen, noting that he was one of Asa’d’s brothers as well as being another high-ranking member of the group.

‘Great survivor, thinker, leader’

The movement described Abu Sharia as a “great leader and intellectual,” who had survived at least five other assassination attempts before his ultimate martyrdom, and denounced the Israeli slaughter that had cost his life as “cowardly.”

Abu Sharia was “one of the pillars of jihad (struggle) and resistance in Palestine and a cornerstone of the Islamic project in the nation,” it noted.

‘Inflicted heavy losses on Israel’

According to the movement, the victim had either directed or fought many “heroic” resistance operations targeting various areas throughout Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and the occupied Palestinian territories since the group's foundation in 2001.

Most importantly, Abu Sharia had the movement contribute to the historic Operation al-Aqsa Storm of October 7, 2023, the statement read.

That operation saw resistance fighters venture deep within the occupied territories, encircle strategic Israeli military bases, and capture hundreds of Zionists.

The overall contribution “inflicted heavy losses on the corrupting enemy,” the movement said in the statement.

It also noted how the victim would not abandon anti-Israeli struggle, despite losing as many as 155 members of his extended family throughout the regime’s incessant attacks against Gaza.

Warning to enemy

The group, meanwhile, vowed not to let the regime’s atrocities, including its assassination of Abu Sharia, go unanswered.

It defined its commitment to the principles that used to be championed by the victim as “our covenant and a trust upon the necks of the valiant mujahideen (fighters).”

Hamas, Gaza’s main resistance movement, also condoled with the Palestinian people, the international Muslim nation, and all the free-thinking people of the world over the tragedy.

It hailed the former resistance leader’s unfaltering contribution to the path of struggle and steadfastness.

Hamas, meanwhile, asserted that such barbaric atrocities would not only fail to break down the resistance’s will, but will also further resolve the Palestinian nation to continue its fight for liberation of its land and sanctities.

Source: Press TV