TEHRAN - Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has expressed condolences over the demise of former leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement Ramadan Shallah.

In a message published on Monday, Ayatollah Khamenei said the resistance movement lost an “honest” and “valuable” figure.

Shallah, who served as secretary general of the resistance group from 1995 to 2018, died at the age of 62 on Saturday night, according to Lebanon’s al-Manar television network.

The Gaza-based movement said in a statement that Shallah had been in a coma for more than three years. It didn’t say where he died, but he is believed to have been in Lebanon, Press TV reported.

Also in separate messages, Defense Minister Amir Hatami, IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, chief of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations Kamal Kharrazi, director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif offered condolences over the death of Shallah.

A professor of economics at the University of Gaza, Shallah was one of the founders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.

He led the movement for more than 20 years, after its founder, Fathi Shaghaghi, was assassinated in Malta in 1995 in an attack widely attributed to the Israeli regime.

NA/PA