The First Targeted US Killing in Gaza

This would be the first targeted US killing in Gaza.

The burned-out skeleton of the car occupied by Muhamad Jamal Nimnim. Photos courtesy: desertpeace.wordpress.com

(GAZA CITY) - The aura of mystery around the type of attack that blew up the car driven by Muhamad Jamal Nimnim, on Wednesday 4^thof  November at noon in the center of Gaza City, seems now to disappear showing some very alarming scenarios.

Nimnim, 27 years old, coming from the Shati refugee camp, was one of the Army of Islam leader, and in 2007 acted as a mediator with Hamas for the release of the British BBC journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped by its militia.

Not along time after the explosion that killed him instantly and has severely injuring the other passenger who was on the car with him while they were passing near the Islamic University, numerous witnesses declared that no one had seen neither Israeli F16 fighter nor drones flying in the sky, as is usually before and after every air raid.

Therefore, first thought was about the presence of a bomb on the car detonated at a distance, rare event in Gaza, but already happened: in the past, in fact, some Israel quislings had already made similar attacks.

But after the tests on the bomb’s remains and the studies on the crater created by the explosion, it was clear that it had been a missile attack, launched by an unknown and invisible military vehicle.

Finally, during a press conference the Israeli army spokesman, after having defined Nimim “a cell of a terrorist group who was infiltrated from the Gaza Strip in the Sinai peninsula for planning attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets”, raised alarming suspicions later confirmed by declaring: " Without going into specific details, I can tell you that as well as with other allied forces, there’s a large military and intelligence cooperation also between us and the Americans."

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A reliable answer has been provided today by an Israeli website, Debkafile. According the investigative journalists working for this site very close to the military and espionage environments in Tel Aviv the missile that hit Nimnim’s car has not been fired by an Israeli military vehicle, but by a U.S. warship in the Mediterranean sea.

On how the Israeli secret services have been carefully monitoring the movements of Palestinian militiaman and passing such precise information to the U.S. warship, here in Gaza we have very clear ideas.

It’s not a coincidence, in fact, that the car on which Nimnim was travelling belonged to that small car fleet that Israel, in the last month, left passing through the commercial pass of Kerem Shalom, whereas since 2007 cars have always been part of the list of goods banished from the Gaza Strip.

Israel perfectly knows that the only ones who can afford new cars in Gaza are the leaders of armed groups and Hamas knows it as well; in fact its Ministry of Interior had already alerted the buyers about the possible presence of tracking devices on cars.

This would be the first targeted US killing in Gaza, whereas similar “murders made in the USA” against suspected terrorists have already taken place in Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.

A dear old friend, Khalil, dejected and resigned, commented:

"Netanyahu's bombs were not enough, now even those of Obama. Gaza is like a mousetrap, against which the next time someone will shoot from the moon.”

*Vittorio Arrigoni lives in Gaza City. Freelance journalist and peace activist, Italian member of the ISM (International Solidarity Movement), he wrote especially for the newspaper Il Manifesto. He lives in the Gaza Strip since 2008. He is the author of  Gaza Stay Human  (Gaza. Restiamo umani).

Blog: http://guerrillaradio.iobloggo.com/