Arab media outlets reported on Thursday that Abdel Aziz Salha was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, located in the central Gaza Strip. Salha, who was released as part of the Gilad Shalit release deal in 2011, is remembered for his role in the brutal lynching of IDF reservists Vadim Nurzhitz and Yosef Avrahami in October 2000 in Ramallah, when he presented his bloodied hands outside of a window.
On October 12, 2000, Nurzhitz and Avrahami mistakenly entered Ramallah on their way to a military base near the West Bank, instead of bypassing the city through the Hizma checkpoint. As soon as they entered the Palestinian city, they were identified as Israelis by their yellow license plates and a Palestinian mob began pelting their vehicle with stones and attacking them.
At one point, they were stuck in a traffic jam, preventing them from driving away. Palestinian policemen took them to the Al-Bireh police station, all while threatening them with rifles. Along the way, the reservists were subjected to brutal violence by the mob, with no attempt by the officers to protect them.
Even when the reservists arrived at the police station, the crowd gathered outside, demanding to pull them out and murder them. Eventually, the doors were opened and the crowd, along with Palestinian policemen, beat the two men to death with extreme violence. Their bodies were then thrown into the street, where further abuse continued.
Salha, originally from the village of Deir Jarir near Ramallah, admitted during his 2001 arrest that he was part of the mob that stormed the police station and strangled one of the soldiers while others beat him. When he saw his hands covered in the soldiers' blood, he went to the window and proudly displayed them to the crowd below.
In 2004, he was convicted of the murder of Corporal Vadim Nurzhitz and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2011, however, he was one of the terrorists released as part of the Shalit release deal.
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