The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Wednesday that it had killed Aziz Salha, a Palestinian terrorist responsible for one of the most iconic images of the second intifada, as he raised his bloodied hands out a window.
The blood belonged to two IDF reservists who had taken a wrong turn and drove into Ramallah. Salha and other lynched the reservists, then he raised his blood-drenched hands to cheers from a crowd of Palestinians outside.
The Times of Israel reported:
Soldiers Sgt. First Class (res.) Yosef Avrahami and Cpl. (Res.) Vadim Norzhic were killed in October 2000 after they took a wrong turn and ended up in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah in the West Bank.
Salha is known for an image in which he is seen proudly displaying his blood-soaked hands to a mob following the lynching of the two reserve soldiers.
He was detained by Israel in 2001 and eventually exiled to Gaza in a 2011 deal in which Israel exchanged 1,027 terror convicts for captive soldier Gilad Shalit.
The bloody hands have become an image of the Palestinian cause, repeated over the past year by pro-Palestinian activists in demonstrations across the world, including by many who may not know the origin of the symbol.
Another terrorist who was released in 2011 at the same time was Yayha Sinwar, whose life was saved in prison by an Israeli doctor and who yet went on to become the leader of Hamas, responsible for the terror attack of October 7.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
