The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel Security Agency (ISA) announced Monday that they had killed Fateh Sherif, who led Hamas in Lebanon. He was also a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employee.
In a joint statement, the IDF and ISA said:
Overnight, during a joint IDF and ISA intelligence-based activity, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist Fateh Sherif, Head of the Lebanon Branch in the Hamas terrorist organization.
Sherif was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives. He was also responsible for Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.
He led the Hamas terrorist organization’s force build-up efforts in Lebanon and operated to advance Hamas’ interests in Lebanon, both politically and militarily.
The IDF and the ISA will to continue to operate against anyone who poses a threat to the civilians of the State of Israel.
UNRWA acknowledged that Fateh Sherif had been the principal of one of its schools, the Times of Israel reported:
Sherif was killed today in an airstrike on the al-Bass refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, along with his wife and children. Reports indicate he had been the principal of the UNRWA-run Deir Yassin Secondary School in al-Bass.
“Fateh Al Sharif was an UNRWA employee who was put on administrative leave without pay in March, and was undergoing an investigation following allegations that UNRWA received about his political activities,” UNRWA says in response to a Times of Israel query.
Sherif’s suspension for three months had sparked protests in Lebanon, the Times of Israel added.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters on Monday that Sherif had been head of the UNRWA teachers’ association in Lebanon.
He said that UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini had to answer: “What on earth is a terrorist doing as one of your teachers?”
Several UNRWA employees were also found to have participated in the October 7 terror attacks. Israel has called for the dismantling of the agency.
Then-President Donald Trump cut off its U.S. funding in 2018, but President Joe Biden restored it upon taking office. The Biden administration suspended funding to UNRWA after evidence of its ties to terror emerged after October 7.
Several Democratic members of Congress, backed by far-left J Street, have proposed a bill to restore funding to UNRWA; they acknowledge its role in terror but insist it can be reformed and trusted with U.S. taxpayers’ money.
Mencer said that UNRWA could not be reformed, and recounted the agency’s collaboration with Hamas in Gaza and elsewhere. “UNRWA, unfortunately, is a front for Hamas.”
Sherif was the latest major terrorist leader to be killed in two weeks of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel also killed three senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another terrorist group.
In a statement, the IDF and ISA said they had killed Nidal Abdel-Aal, head of the PFLP’s Lebanon branch, as well as Imad Odeh, the head of the PFLP’s military office in Lebanon. They added that Abdel-Aal had directed terror attacks on Israelis in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), including a bus bombing and a shooting attack, both in 2023.
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.
