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The al-Quds Brigades are the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, founded in 1981. They seek to establish an Islamic state of Palestine in the pre-1948 borders of Mandatory Palestine, with 8,000 dedicated fighters.
History[]
al-Quds Brigades troops training
The al-Quds Brigades were founded in 1981 as a Sunni Islamist, Anti-Zionist, and Palestinian nationalist group that was the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd al-Aziz Awda were the first leaders of the al-Quds Brigades.
The brigades were especially active in the West Bank, primarily in Jenin. By 2004, Israeli Defense Force attacks on its infrastructure weakened the group, and on 1 March 2006 its leader Abu al-Walid al-Dahdouh was killed in a missile strike. They continue to fight Israel from the Gaza Strip with rocket attacks, and they have around 8,000 members.