A former minister of the Palestinian Authority was killed on Sunday December 31 in an Israeli bombing of his house in the Gaza Strip. His death was announced by the Palestinian news agency WAFA and the Hamas-administered Gaza Health Ministry.
Youssef Salama, 68, former minister of religious affairs in the Palestinian Authority, was killed in an Israeli strike on his house Sunday morning in the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, the sources said .
Considered close to Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Youssef Salama held this ministerial portfolio between February 2005 and March 2006. He also officiated as a preacher during Friday prayers on the Esplanade des Mosques in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have left 21,822 dead, mostly women, children and adolescents, since the start of the war on October 7, according to the latest report published Sunday by the Hamas government.
They were launched in retaliation for an attack of unprecedented scale carried out by Hamas commandos which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people in Israel, the majority civilians, according to the latest official Israeli data.