The Tawheed and Jihad group also mourned the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees who died in an retaliatory IAF strike on Thursday.

 

A number of other PRC members were also killed in the retaliatory IAF air strike including the head of the terror group Kamal a-Nirab, who the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said had personally directed and planned the attack. A nine year old boy in the car with the terrorists was also killed.

 

"We in the Tawheed and Jihad group bless these blessed arms that pounded the fortifications of the vendeta-filled Jewish enemy in the so-called Eilat area in southern occupied Palestine," the group said in an Internet statement.

 

It said the attack sent Israel and "their border guards in the Egyptian army" a message that Egypt has joined the struggle against "the enemies of God."

 

Egyptian security officials on Wednesday accussed Hamas of harboring terrorists who had carried out attacks in the Sinai.

 

During the IAF attack on Thursday, another terrorist killed was identified as Amas Hamed, commander of the PRC’s military wing and a resident of Rafiah.

 

The Shin Bet said Hamed was involved in the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in June 2006 and oversaw numerous attacks against Israel including suicide bombings and rocket attacks.

 

Two other known PRC terrorists, including one who was also involved in Schalit’s abduction, were also killed in the air strike.

 

“The terrorists were directly involved in the attacks along the Israeli-Egyptian border,” a security official said.