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Hamas Leader's Assassination Fully Endorsed By Israel
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Nov. 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel endorsed Saturday the assassination a day earlier of a senior member of Hamas, claiming that "he was implicated in numerous attacks on Israeli targets," news agencies reported.
Mahmud Abu Hannud, a 34-year-old leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, was assassinated Friday evening in an Israeli missile strike.
Two other Palestinians were also killed when Israeli gunships fired more than five rockets at their car near the northern West Bank village of Yasid, a local Hamas official and his family told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades will avenge its military leader soon," Nablus Hamas leader, Adnaan Asfur, told AFP. He was invoking the name of the group's armed wing.
The bodies of Abu Hannud and his chief lieutenant, Iman Hashaike, 34, and Hashaike's brother, Maamun, 28, were charred beyond recognition in the attack.
A senior advisor to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat warned that Israel has broken all boundaries with its killings in the past two days.
"The Israeli government has crossed all red lines in intensifying its attacks, which have cost the lives of more than 10 Palestinians since Thursday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," Arafat's senior advisor, Nabil Abu Rudeina, told AFP.
Rudeina accused Israel of looking "to sabotage the United States' efforts and to bring a blow against the mission of the U. S. emissaries expected in the region in the next week." He called for U. S. President George W. Bush to "urgently act to stop the massacres committed by Israel."
But Hamas leaders have vowed revenge, reported the BBC's online news service.
"Experience has shown that the military wing of Hamas reacts to the Israeli crimes and always strikes back," said Hamas official Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi. "God willing, there will be a painful response against the criminal enemy."
Twelve Palestinians have died in the past two days, including five Palestinian children Thursday in the southern Gaza Strip.
U. S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns and retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni are to depart for the Middle East on Sunday to work toward a new ceasefire.
Before the announcement of Abu Hannud's death, Israeli public radio cited official sources as saying Abu Hannud, who was on Israel's most-wanted list, was the target of the attack.
Earlier, two Palestinians died in the self-ruled village of Beit Iba, west of Nablus, in an explosion whose cause is still undetermined, hospital sources said.
In Gaza, Israeli troops shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian and wounded five other teenagers when the troops opened fire on Palestinian stone-throwers. The incident occurred following the funerals of the five Palestinian children killed Thursday in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian motorist was killed and five other Palestinian passengers were injured when Israeli tanks opened fire on their car with shells and heavy machine guns by the Rafah border terminal, Palestinian security official Col. Khaled Abu al-Ula said.
An Israeli military source told AFP the vehicle was allegedly traveling on a restricted military road and the soldiers had opened fire only after firing warning shots.
The latest deaths brought to 989 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation in September 2000. They include 778 Palestinians (mostly children and teenagers) and 189 Israelis.
Israel has an avowed policy of assassinating Palestinians it "suspects" of having carried out or planned attacks on Israeli targets. Some 60 Palestinian suspects have been killed since the outbreak of the latest Intifada against Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
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