Sunday, February 08, 2004

Poetic Justice?
Remember Rim al-Riyashi, mother of two, who blew herself and four Israelis up, at the border crossing between Gaza and Israel, taking four Israelis with her? You may also remember that she was allegedly sent on this mission by her charming lover, in cahoots with her equally charming husband, because she had dishonored the family, by sleeping with the charming lover.

Well, according to Yesha News (this is a Hebrew link, read about this source here), Rim al-Riyashi’s lover (although maybe “lover” is the wrong term, how much love could there have been?) was none other than Abd el-Nasser Abu Shoka, Commander of the Hamas Central Command in Gaza, who was killed this weekend. Here’s an Arab source about his death.

Bish says that the story about Abu Shoka being al-Riyashy's infamous lover is all over Israeli current affair forums, posted by people who claim to be quoting Arab sources.

According to the forums, the details of Abu Shoka's killing were as follows: He was in contact with an Israeli Arab through whom he was purchasing uniforms for Hamas “militants”, but in addition to the uniforms he was also given a gift, a relief of the el-Aqza mosque. Unfortunately for him, it seems to have had a bomb in it, which was activated by an aircraft. Boom.

Yesha News also has the el-Aqza mosque relief story, but nothing about the uniforms, or the Israeli Arab. They also say this is from Arab sources, but fail to elaborate.

If all this is true, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Excuse my blood thirst, this doesn’t sound exactly like the-boy-next-door.

The killing of Abu Shoka has been mentioned in a few more places.

I'd like to point out that Abu Shoka's connection to al-Riyashy hasn't been confirmed by any major news sources, yet.

Afterthought: I forgot to point out that Israel denies any connection to Abu Shoka's death, so maybe the al-Aqza story is just that - a story.