An IDF airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday killed Aziz Salha, a Palestinian man notorious for his involvement in the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah in 2000. Salha gained global infamy for his role in the brutal attack, during which he was captured on video waving his blood-soaked hands to a cheering crowd after the murders of two Israeli reservists.

The incident, which took place on October 12, 2000, during the early days of the Second Intifada, shocked Israelis and became a symbol of the violence associated with the collapse of the Oslo Accords.

The two soldiers, Cpl. Vadim Norzhic, 33, and Sgt. First Class Yosef Avrahami, 38, had accidentally entered the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah, where they were brutally beaten, stabbed, and mutilated by a mob. The lynching occurred at the Palestinian Authority’s police station in the twin city of el-Bireh, where Salha stood at a window displaying his bloodied hands.

Salha, 43, was arrested by Israeli authorities a year after the attack but was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal to secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

The IDF confirmed that Salha was killed in an airstrike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, and noted that in recent years, he had been actively involved in coordinating terrorist activities in the West Bank. “He continued to engage in terrorist activity even in these past days,” the IDF said in a statement.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)