The leader of a Gaza-based radical Islamist terror group is comatose, following a series of operations in Beirut, the Quds Press reported Tuesday.
Ramadan Shalah, the 60-year-old cofounder and Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad terror group, has been in a coma for several weeks, the Quds Press reported, following operations at the Al-Rassoul al Aazam Hospital in southern Beirut.
According to members of Islamic Jihad, Shalah had suffered multiple strokes while living in Damascus, and was taken into Lebanon for treatment at the behest of the Hezbollah terror group.
A source close to the Fatah faction claimed that the Palestinian Authority’s mission in Beirut sent a memo to Ramallah claiming that it appeared Shalah had been poisoned. Both Israel’s Mossad agency and an undercover agency of another regional power are suspected, the memo claimed.
Officials within Islamic Jihad say they have begun looking for a replacement to lead the terror group, after doctors said Shalah was unlikely to ever make a full recovery.
Shalah’s predecessor, Fathi Shaqaqi, was assassinated in 1995, in an operation widely believed to have been carried out by Israel’s Mossad.
Sources within Islamic Jihad have denied claims that Shalah was poisoned, and say the deterioration of his condition was a result of the strokes he suffered.