Bringing an end to a manhunt that lasted more than 14 years, Israeli commandos killed senior Hamas terror leader Abed Majid Dudin in the southern Hebron hills on Thursday.

He planned at least two multiple suicide bombings in Jerusalem and outside Tel Aviv in 1995.

Five Israelis were murdered, and another 32 were killed in the bombing of Bus No. 20 in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan on July 24, 1995.

Another five Israelis were murdered, and another 107 were injured in the bombing of Bus No. 26 in front of Rene Cassin High School in Jerusalem’s Ramat Eshkol neighborhood on Aug. 21, 1995.

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In each of these bombing attacks, the perpetrator of these killings blew himself up together with his victims.

Dudin, 45, recruited the two bombers who perpetrated these attacks.

Shortly after the attacks, Palestinian Authority (PA) security officials arrested Dudin at the Israeli government’s insistence, and the Israelis formally asked for his extradition after his capture.

In order to block the extradition, the PA tried Dudin and sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment. However, he never went to prison and continued working unhindered as a Hamas operative.

Dudin returned to prison under the framework of the 1998 Wye Memorandum, which was signed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Yasser Arafat. He was imprisoned in Hebron, but was released in 2001 in the early stages of the al-Aqsa intifada, which was coordinated by the Fatah and the Hamas, working under the direction of the PA security forces.

Dudin had been on Israel’s most wanted list ever since and served, until his death, as the commander of Hamas’ military wing in the southern Hebron hills area.

The Israeli security forces tried capturing Dudin on a number of occasions following his release from Palestinian prison. The Israel Police’s SWAT team reached Dudin in his hideout in the village Dura in the southern Hebron hills, killing him following an exchange of gunfire.

Hamas has accused the PA of assisting Israel locating Dudin and has threatened to carry out revenge attacks. The PA denies that it assisted Israel in locating and killing Dudin.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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