Ibrahim Abu Thuraya

Ibrahim Abu Thuraya (born c.1989) was a Gazan political activist.

History

In 2005, he was a member of Force 17, an armed unit of Fatah. He was shot three times in the leg during July 2005 clashes between Fatah and Hamas, part of the Fatah–Hamas conflict.

He lost both his legs and an eye in an Israeli artillery strike during the Gaza War (2008–09). Previously he was a fisherman.

In 2012, Irish Friends of Palestine started a fund-raising campaign to support Abu Thuraya and buy him an electric wheelchair. At the time he was washing cars for a living.

On Friday 15 December 2017, Abu Thuraya was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper and killed during protests on the border with Israel, east of Gaza City in the north of the Gaza Strip. Two days before his death he appeared in a video in which he said, "This land is our land. We are not going to give up. America has to withdraw the declaration it has made. The most important thing is we are coming here to pass a message on to the Zionist occupation army that the Palestinian people are a strong people".

His death has been compared to that of Mohammed al-Dura. Nasser Atta, a Jerusalem-based journalist, said the death of Abu Thuraya "will be the beginning of the start of a third intifada".