A son of Gaza, he was born in 1963 in Maghazi refugee camp. Arrested and re-arrested, he was forced to leave Gaza in the 1980s, where he was leading resistance. A leading military commander, he would, five years after his martyrdom, free over 1,000 prisoners. This is the story of commander Abu Ataya, Sheikh Jamal Abu Samhadana, founder of the Popular Resistance Committees and its armed wing, the Nasser Al-Salah Al-Din Brigades, who ascended on this day in 2006.
From Gaza, Abu Ataya went to Egypt. His path led him to Syria, Morocco, Tunisia, and even as far as Germany, where he enrolled in a military academy for three years. He travelled to Algeria and then Iraq before ending his tour of the Arab world and returning finally home to Gaza in 1993 despite his strong opposition to the recently signed Oslo Accords.
He worked in the Palestinian Authority security forces as an officer and soon became an elected member of Fatah. But Abu Ataya was dissatisfied with the level of corruption in Fatah. The party expelled him after he protested against their corruption, and the PA even abducted him for 19 months in their prisons for working with Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Abu Ataya soon realized he had to create his own project.
With the help of Saraya Al-Quds leaders and with the spark of the second intifada in 2000, he announced the beginnings of the Popular Resistance Committees from Rafah, Gaza and formed the Nasser Al-Salah Al-Din Brigades, its military wing. Its fighters were mostly ex-Fatah and PA forces members, along with Hamas and PIJ fighters. Abu Ataya established extensive relationships with other resistance forces, and as such, PRC maintained and still maintains a very close relationship to Hezbollah.
After Al-Qassam Brigades and Saraya Al-Quds, the Nasser Al-Salah Al-Din Brigades is the strongest military wing in Gaza. Its operations are many, painful, and precise. The Nasser Salah Al-Din Brigades were the first in Palestine to blow up the “indestructible” Zionist Merkava, killing many occupation soldiers and wounding others. Under Abu Ataya’s command, fighters infiltrated several settlements and on one occasion in 2003, attacked a US convoy that killed five in Gaza. Years after his martyrdom, PRC fighters continue to carry out destructive and creative operations, such as the Flag Ambush Operation of 2018, in which explosives were hidden inside a flagpole on the Gaza colonial border. Under Abu Ataya and now, the PRC’s “Nasser” and “Abu Ataya” rockets cause destruction to the fragile zionist entity, striking “Tel Aviv” and beyond, its AQ suicide drones strike occupation targets, and its fighters are active in the West Bank.
In his heroic journey, he survived three assassination attempts by the zionist entity. A cautious man, he did not carry a phone; contact with him was only possible through associates. In August 2004, he survived a targeted zionist bombing. After these assassination attempts, he elected to walk everywhere, abandoning his car.
In 2006, Abu Ataya became the first resistance commander to hold a governmental position in Gaza under the Hamas government; he was the most wanted by the zionist entity after Al-Qassam Brigades commander-in-chief Mohammed Deif. This position put him on even worse terms with the enemy. Faced with threats from the US and zionist entity, Abu Ataya declared: “I do not fear zionist threats. We are not afraid of the zionist entity. All of our people are within their circle of targeting, and we will use all means to protect the resistance and our people. We are not afraid of death. We fight for martyrdom.”
On this day 17 years ago, US-funded zionist planes bombarded a PRC training site, targeting Sheikh Jamal. He ascended to martyrdom with his comrades, fulfilling his destiny. Immediately following the news of his martyrdom, “Sderot” was bombarded by the missiles of the resistance and resistance fighters carried out operations on soldiers and settlers. A page of the Palestinian struggle was turned, but the chapter had not ended.
In fact, at the moment of his martyrdom, Abu Ataya was strategizing with martyr Ahmed Al-Jabari for a carefully planned joint operation which would shatter the enemy’s illusion of security. This operation, aptly named Operation Dissipated Illusion, was carried out by fighters of Nasser Al-Salah Al-Din Brigades 17 days after Abu Ataya’s martyrdom.
At 5:15 AM in Rafah, where the PRC marked its beginnings, PRC fighters shelled an occupation watchtower and opened fire. They crossed into the occupied Palestine, gunning down soldiers. By the end of the affair, two zionist soldiers had been killed, five were wounded, and the prize of Zionist soldier Gilad Shalit had been taken by fighters who returned to Gaza. Two fighters ascended to martyrdom in the heroic operation. On the same day, PRC fighters in the West Bank carried out the Rage of the Knights operation, in which they kidnapped a zionist police officer and killed him. In Gaza, Shalit was carefully guarded despite manic zionist raids to find him, as PRC fighters handed him to Al-Qassam Brigades for protection.
Five years later, Gilad would be exchanged for over 1,000 prisoners in zionist jails in the “Faithful to the Free” operation mediated by Hamas; a mere 1 minute video of him freed 19 women prisoners two years before that. Today, we honor the legacy of this mountain of a leader, who martyr Basil Al-Araj described as “a man of brilliant military mindset—the Artaboun of Palestine.”
Sheikh Jamal Abu Samhadna taught us: “Our victories over the zionist occupation have proven their failure and their impotence. They have proven that there is no shrewdness in the ‘Palestinian negotiator,’ but that the real shrewdness comes from the Palestinian fighter who tarnished the honor of ‘israel’ in the dust. The most honorable position that a Palestinian can arrive at is to become a fighter and protect his people and his sanctities, to sacrifice all that he has for the sake of his people’s freedom.”
Freedom for our heroic prisoners.
Glory to our commanding martyr whose legacy endures.
Glory to the destroyer of the indestructible.