Jamal Abu Samhadana

Jamal Abu Samhadana was the first leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Gaza. According to journalist Donald Macintyre, Hamas subsequently put Samhadana in charge of its new paramilitary policy – the ‘Executive Force’ – after winning the 2006 elections. He was killed in June 2006 in an Israeli airstrike against a militant camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

Abu Samhadana was previously a Fatah leader in Gaza, a former police officer in the Palestinian Authority (PA), and before that a member of ‘Fatah Hawks’.