Rafael Trujillo (24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961) was the military dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 to May of 1961. He ruled through a cult of personality and was behind multiple acts of state run terrorism. In 1956 his Servicio de Inteligencia (SIM) agents kidnapped, and presumably murdered, Jesus Galindez a Basque writer and speaker in New York. Galindez had lectured at Columbia University about Trujillo and his dictatorship.
Trujillo’s reign was marked by disappearances and massacres. It is estimated 50,000 people disappeared during his regime. The Parsley Massacre saw Dominican troops kill between 14 and 40 thousand Haitian men, women and children under Trujillo’s orders.
On May 30, 1961 Trujillo was assassinated by General Antonio Imbert Barrera and his co conspirators opening a new era in Dominican governance.
Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar (29 October 1962 – 16 October 2024) was the Hamas head of Gaza and chairman of the Hamas Political Wing. He was born in Khan Yunis, Egyptian controlled Gaza. He co-founded the Munazzamat al Jihad w’al-Dawaworked to identify collaborators with Israel among the Palestinian population, which in 1987 became the Hamas “police”. Sinwar’s killing of suspected collaborators with Israel gained him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Yunis”
Sinwar was arrested in 1988 by the Palestinian Authority for the killing of 2 Israelis and 4 Palestinians. During his time in prison he continued to coordinate killings of Palestinians believed to be Israeli sympathizers and Israeli citizens. He was released in 2000 under unknown circumstances.
He was later arrested by the Israelis. While incarcerated, in 2004, he had a life threatening brain tumor removed at Soroka Medical Center.
He was released in 2011 and became the Hamas head of Gaza in 2017. In August of 2022 he began planning an attack on Israeli civilians. The attack was delayed until Oct 7, 2023. On Oct 16, 2024 Sinwar was killed by a bullet after a firefight with IDF troops during the Israeli-Hamas War.
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