Syrian firefighters and security men remove the wrecked car of Khalil (AFP)

DAMASCUS, September 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Israel assassinated Sunday, September 26, a senior Hamas member in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Ezzeddin Al-Sheikh Khalil was killed in a bobby-trapped car blast in the Al-Hakleh district in southern Damascus.

“The victim Ezzeddin Sheikh Khalil, 40, was a member of Hamas,” Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted a Palestinian source as saying.

The explosion went off shortly after Khalil started the engine, witnesses said.

Blood was splattered on the back seat. The blast shattered windows in high-rise buildings and damaged a nearby car.

The fresh attacks came few day after the assassination of a military commander of Hamas’ military wing Ezzudin Al-Qassam Brigades.

Khaled Abu Salmieh was killed on September 19, when his car took a direct hit from a rocket fired by the Israeli aircraft on Al-Jalah Street in the heart of Gaza City.

Israeli Hands

A library photo for Ezzeddin Al-Sheikh Khalil

The Israeli government claimed responsibility for the assassination of the Hamas cadre in Damascus in a statement carried by the Associated Press.

The Israeli government had threatened to assassinate Hamas members at home and abroad as well as the Syrian lands.

“We will strike Hamas everywhere -- in Gaza, in Damascus -- in order to avoid the assassinations of Israelis,” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin had said in an earlier interview with AFP.

Hamas immediately held the Israeli government responsible for the attack, vowing to continue attacks against Israeli till ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands.

“We blame Mossad for putting a bomb in his car,” Mushir Al-Masri, a spokesman for Hamas, told AFP in Gaza City.

He said the Hamas movement would continue resistance against the Israeli occupation till liberating the occupied Palestinian lands.

“The Zionist enemy is trying to export its crisis and to drag the whole region into conflict.”

“Such assassination would not weaken the Hamas movement but rather the group would strongly retaliate for the assassination.”

Palestinian resistance factions have declared an “open war” against Israeli occupation forces after the assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.

Mohammad Nazzal, a leading member of Hamas’ politburo, said the Mossad acted on a tip-off from an Arab intelligence service.

“It amounts to high treason as we at war with Israel,” he told Al-Jazeera satellite channel.