Vittorio Arrigoni

In June 2015, after being granted a furlough from prison, Mahmoud al-Salfiti managed to escape from Gaza to Iraq, where he joined ISIS. On November 28, 2015 he was reportedly killed fighting for ISIS in Anbar province.

The four Salafist extremists captured in the raid were charged over Arrigoni's abduction and murder in a Hamas military court. The trial was presided over by military judge Abu Omar Atallah. They were found guilty in September 2012. Mahmoud al-Salfiti, 28, and Tamer al-Hasasna, 27, were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor: the court refrained from imposing the death penalty on them after Arrigoni's parents urged that they be spared. Khader Jram, 24, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and Amer Abu Ghouleh, 23, was given a prison term of one year for sheltering fugitives. Following an appeal, a military court reduced the sentences of Salfiti and al-Hasana from life to 15 years on 19 February 2013. "We asked in our appeal for the conviction for murder and abduction to be dropped to only abduction," their lawyer Mohammed Zaqut said.

Arrigoni was kidnapped on 14 April 2011. In a video posted on YouTube in which they identified themselves as belonging to a previously unknown group, "The Brigade of the Gallant Companion of the Prophet Mohammed bin Muslima," Arrigoni was blindfolded with blood seen around his right eye. The captors demanded the release of their leader Walid al-Maqdasi, imprisoned by the de facto government in Gaza a month earlier, as a ransom and threatened Arrigoni's killing if a 30-hour deadline was not met. The captors accused Arrigoni of "spreading corruption" and his home country Italy as an "infidel state."

Arrigoni was credited as one of the many activists who revived the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian group that works in the Palestinian territories. In August 2008, he participated in the Free Gaza mission that aimed to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, in place since June 2007 when Hamas took power in the territory. He was on the first boat that arrived in the Port of Gaza, describing that moment as "one of the happiest and most emotional" of his lifetime." While volunteering to act as a human shield for a Palestinian fisherman off Gaza's coast in September 2008, Arrigoni was injured by flying glass after the Israeli Navy used a water cannon to deter the vessel. In November, he was arrested by Israeli authorities after again acting as a human shield for fishermen off Gaza's coast.

He returned to Gaza prior to the Israeli military offensive Operation Cast Lead, which lasted from December 2008 to January 2009. Arrigoni was one of the few foreign journalists in Gaza during the war; he worked with Radio Popolare and as reporter for the Italian newspaper Il manifesto. He later published a book, Restiamo umani (en: Gaza, Stay Human), a collection of his reportage from Gaza. It is translated into English, Spanish, German, and French with a preface by Israeli historian Ilan Pappé.

Vittorio Arrigoni (Italian pronunciation: [vitˌtɔːrjo arriˈɡoːni] ; 4 February 1975 – 15 April 2011) was an Italian reporter, writer, pacifist and activist. Arrigoni worked with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Gaza Strip, from 2008 until his death. Arrigoni maintained a website, Guerrilla Radio, and published a book of his experiences in Gaza during the 2008–09 Gaza War between Hamas and Israel. Arrigoni was the first foreigner kidnapped in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston's abduction in 2007. He was subsequently killed by Palestinian Salafists. His murder was condemned by various Palestinian groups.

Arrigoni was born in the town of Besana in Brianza, near Monza, on 4 February 1975. He claimed that it was in his blood to fight for freedom as his grandfathers fought against the former fascist regime in Italy. He had the Arabic word for resistance (muqawama) tattooed on his right arm. Once he passed his high school exams in Italy, he left his hometown of Bulciago, a small village near lake Como, and began working as a volunteer around the world (East Europe, South America, Africa and Middle East). In 2002, he visited Jerusalem which according to his mother was the "moment he understood his work would be concentrated there." His mother, Egidia Beretta, is the mayor of Bulciago.