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The Terrorist Attack on Southern Israel: Under the Authority of Hamas, Using the Tactics of Al-Qaeda
(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Jonathan D. Halevy - The terrorist attack in southern Israel on August 18 in which eight Israelis were killed was initiated and executed by the Palestinian terrorist organization known as the "Popular Resistance Committees," which operate as a terrorist arm of Hamas. The Popular Resistance Committees were established at the beginning of the Second Intifada at the end of September 2000 by Jamal Abu Samhadana. The ideology of the Popular Resistance Committees is based on an extremist version of Islamism, which places the organization in the same category as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and even al-Qaeda. The Popular Resistance Committees joined forces with Hamas and Jaish al-Islam (the Army of Islam), which is identified with al-Qaeda, in order to conduct an attack in June 2006 on Israeli forces inside Israel, just north of Gaza, in which IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped.