Fawzi el Kutub
Fawzi al-Qutub (Arabic : فوزي نامق القطوب ; 1917 - 1988), Nazi collaborator[1] and chief terror bomber of the Palestinian Arabs in the 1948 war against Israel.
An Arab - Muslim terrorist who served as the chief bomb disposal officer in the headquarters of Abdel-Qader al-Husseini (an Arab Palestinian nationalist leader who had founded the so-called "Organization for Holy Struggle"[2]), head of the volunteer bomb squad "Tadmir,"[1] a special unit of bombers belonging to the Mufti of Jerusalem's troops, during the Israel's War of Independence. Fawzi el Kutub: "the engineer"[2] was responsible for the attacks and explosions that killed dozens of Jews and the destruction of dozens of synagogues’ was a graduate of an SS commando course in Nazi Germany.[3] He prepared many explosive devices, including the devices that caused the explosion on Ben Yehuda Street in which 58 people were murdered.
Born in Jerusalem in 1917[4]. In his youth he worked as a milkman, selling milk in Jerusalem neighborhoods, including Jewish neighborhoods such as Mishkenot Sha'ananim . During the Great Arab Revolt , he participated in several attacks on Jewish convoys.
In the late 1930s, he studied sabotage in Nazi Germany and also took an SS commando course in the Netherlands. During the course, he refused to follow an order and was subsequently imprisoned in a concentration camp near the city of Breslau in Germany. Following the connections of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, with the top Nazi leadership, al-Kutub was released from prison. He then returned to Palestine and, with the outbreak of war in the region, was appointed chief sabotage officer at the headquarters of Abdel-Qader al-Husseini, which was stationed in Bir Zeit .
Notable acts of sabotage:
Al-Kutub was responsible for the attack on the offices of the Palestine Post newspaper (now the Jerusalem Post).[5][6] [7][8] He prepared the bomb and mounted it on a British army truck. The truck was brought by two British soldiers who had deserted from the army. On the night of February 1–2, 1948, a truck bomb exploded on Hasulel Street in the city center. The explosion killed four people and injured about thirty. Heavy damage was caused to office buildings and residential homes nearby.
Twenty days after the attack on Hasolel Street, the attack on Ben Yehuda Street was carried out. Al Kutub was responsible for preparing the explosives and mounting them on trucks. Deserters from the British army brought Al Kutub three military trucks. One containing three tons, and two containing one and a half tons each. Al Kutub loaded them with more than a ton of TNT , one hundred kilograms of a mixture of potash and aluminum - in order to raise the temperature, as well as Molotov cocktails whose explosion would help increase the range of impact over the surrounding houses. On February 22, 1948, three truck bombs exploded on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. The explosion killed 58 people and injured about 140 more. Three buildings were completely destroyed.
In 1967 he immigrated to Damascus where he opened a translation office thanks to his command of many languages, including English, German, Turkish and Italian. He died on August 8, 1988.
See also
- Hassan Salameh
- Yusuf Abu Durra
- Fattah al-Imam
- Darwish al-Miqdadi
- Akram Zuaiter
- Fawzi al-Qawuqji
- Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir
- Yaqub al-Ghusayn
- Wasef Kamal
- Maarouf al-Dawalibi
- Fadhel al-Jamali
- Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Selent, K. (2003). Ein Gläschen Yarden-Wein auf den israelischen Golan: Polemik, Häresie und Historisches zum endlosen Krieg gegen Israel. Germany: Ça Ira, p.109. (Translated)
Fauzi al-Kutub. Nazi collaborator and chief bomber of the Palestinian Arabs in the 1948 war against Israel.
Fauzi al-Kutub belonged to the inner military circle of the Palestinian Arab national movement. He was head of the volunteer bomb squad "Tadmir," a special unit of bombers belonging to the Mufti of Jerusalem's troops. During the Battle of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, Fauzi al-Kutub personally blew up the Nisan Bek Synagogue and the Hurva Synagogue. In the previous fighting, al-Kutub had worked directly with Abdel Kader al-Hussaini, the military commander of the Mufti's troops. Haj Amin had already sent his army chief to Germany in 1938 "with a select group of followers so that he could perfect his knowledge of explosives" (Collins, 91), but he had Fawzi al-Kutub assemble the bombs that Abdel Kader al-Hussaini used in the 1948 war against Israel. Kutub equipped a stolen British police truck with half a ton of TNT and used it to destroy the editorial and printing presses of the Jewish newspaper Palestine Post. Fawzi al-Kutub then equipped three British army trucks, each with more than a ton of TNT, 100 kilograms of potassium, and aluminum powder.
Al-Kutub sent the explosive convoy into the heart of Jewish Jerusalem and reduced the central Ben Yehuda Street to rubble. Fifty-four civilians lost their lives, and many more were seriously injured. Fauzi al-Kutub was also responsible for the bombings of the Jewish quarter of Montefiore and the Haganah military headquarters in Jerusalem.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 'The truth is louder than TNT'.
'Post' history is commemorated on a Jerusalem street. By Mel Bezalel. JPost
May 7, 2009.
... on February 6, the Post returned to its usual edition and operated in borrowed office space. Commentators immediately assumed the British were behind the car bomb because the vehicle was unmistakably British. Hebrew University professor Alon Kadish asserted that the claims of British Army involvement primarily came from the Irgun underground. But, he said, that allegation was never substantiated. Abd al-Kader al-Husseini, a Palestinian nationalist leader who had founded the so-called "Organization for Holy Struggle" in the Jerusalem area, later claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack. Husseini was a cousin of the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini (and father of the late Palestinian leader in Jerusalem, Faisal Husseini). Historian Dr. Uri Milstein reported that the bomb had been prepared by Fawzi el-Kutub, known as "the engineer." Kutub studied demolitions in Nazi Germany at the end of the 1930s and was later put in a concentration camp for refusing to follow orders during an SS commando course. However, his release was secured by the mufti, who had close ties to Hitler.
- ↑ Morris, B. (2011). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. United Kingdom: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, p.201.
Fawzi al-Kutub, had learned his craft in an SS course in Nazi Germany. On the night of February 1 two British deserters and an Arab used a British Army truck packed with explosives by Kutub to blast the offices of the Palestine Post in downtown Jerusalem.
- ↑ According to Aref al-Aref, he was born in 1921.
- ↑ Uri Milstein, Car bombs in Jerusalem, on the News1 First Class website (Heb.), May 6, 2016.
- ↑ Bombing of the "P. Post" building in Jerusalem , Davar, (Heb.), February 3, 1948. [1]; Explosion of the "P. Post" building - as a Paran act , Davar, (Heb.), February 3, 1948. [2]; "PALESTINE POST" BURNT | AP Newsroom (Associated Press video archive)
- ↑ This week in Jewish history | Palestine Post building bombed by Palestinian terrorists. WJC, 01 Feb 2023
- ↑ Leibovitz, L. (2013). Aliya: Three Generations of American-Jewish Immigration to Israel. United States: St. Martin's Pres, pp. 59-64 [3]