Al-Quds Brigades

Al-Quds Brigades (سرايا القدس, Saraya al-Quds meaning Jerusalem Brigades) is the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Especially active in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the al-Quds Brigades were founded in 1981 by Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd Al Aziz Awda in Gaza, and is reportedly receiving orders from the PIJ leadership in Damascus, Syria.

The al-Quds Brigades were very active in the West Bank, especially in the town of Jenin, but extensive operations against its infrastructures carried out by the IDF resulted in severe losses to the group, and it appeared significantly weakened by 2004 in that region.

On March 1, 2006 Abu al-Walid al-Dahdouh, a commander of the group's military wing, was targeted and killed by a bomb or missile as he drove past the Palestinian finance ministry. On August 30, 2006 the West Bank leader of the Islamic Jihad's military wing, al-Quds Brigades, Hussam Jaradat, was shot and killed by undercover Israel Defense Forces in the city of Jenin.

In the Gaza Strip, the al-Quds Brigades continued to fight militarily, e.g. by indiscriminate al-Quds rocket-attacks out of populated civilian areas. The al-Quds Brigades promote the military destruction of Israel, e.g. indiscriminate rocket and mortar fire or suicide bombings. The international community considers the use of indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations and the use of human shields  as illegal under international law.

Their cause is the establishment of an Islamic state and to settle Palestinians to what the brigades consider their rightful homeland within the geographic borders of the pre-1948 British-mandated Palestine. It refuses to participate in political processes or negotiations about a swap of Israeli and Palestinian settlements.