The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine - Saturday evening - announced the death of its former Secretary General Ramadan Abdullah Shallah at the age of 62, after a long struggle with illness.

"As we mourn the death of the great leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, we recall his history and jihad since the founding of the jihad movement, his courageous national positions and his leadership of the movement with pride and pride for more than 20 years," the movement said in a statement.

And she continued: "It is a sad and heavy day on the heart in which we bid farewell to a great man and a leader who held the trust in the best of what he had, and he kept the flag of jihad high, and he remained in the era of jihad and resistance, Palestine, Jerusalem, Islam and Arabism."

The presidency and factions mourn

In a related context, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas mourned - in a statement carried by the official Palestinian News Agency - Ramadan Shallah, and said, "With the loss of the late Shallah, we will have lost a great national stature."

For its part, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) called Shallah, and she said - in a statement - "The great deceased of Palestine was one of the leaders of our people, and a knight of the knights of jihad and resistance, the son of the struggling Gaza city, who was removed from it by a decision of the occupation authorities."

And she continued: "The leader Ramadan Shallah presented a model in the patience, solidity of the situation, telling the truth, and a legend in jihad and calling to God Almighty, and working for Islam and the cause of Palestine."

We also called the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) "to our Arab and Islamic nation and the freedom of the world, Ramadan Shallah, who moved to the mercy of God Almighty."

In turn, the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement said that "Commander Ramadan Shallah rose to the high after a life full of giving and giving, and he is holding the embers of jihad, bearing the concern of his cause and his people, and did not concede until he spent his love after a long struggle with disease."

The resistance committees in Palestine said that "the leader Ramadan Shallah rose after a life full of jihad, resistance, giving and sacrifices, and we offer condolences to our brothers in the jihad movement for this great calamity."

Ramadan Shallah was born in February 1958, in Al-Shojaeya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. He studied economics at the Egyptian University of Zagazig, and graduated from it in 1981.

In 1990, Shallah received his doctorate in economics from Britain, and he worked as a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of South Florida in the United States between 1993 and 1995.

In 1995, he assumed the position of Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad Movement, succeeding the martyr Fathi Al Shaqaqi, who was assassinated by the Israeli Mossad in Malta.

During the second Palestinian uprising that erupted in 2000, Israel accused Shallah of being directly responsible for a large number of jihad operations against Israeli targets.

Washington included him on the terrorist list in 2003, and at the end of 2017, the FBI added him to the wanted list.