Hamas: America, We Are Not Afraid
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A Palestinian woman collects her belongings from her family home which was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City |
GAZA
CITY, August 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The armed wing of
the Palestinian resistance group Hamas threatened Thursday, August 1,
to kill 100 Israelis for any new attack on any of its leaders such as
last week’s air strike on Gaza City.
The
Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which claimed Wednesday’s bombing at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem that killed seven people and wounded
70, vowed in a statement faxed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) to pursue
its attacks.
Ezzedine
al-Qassam, whose military chief Salah Shehada was killed last week in
an Israeli air strike that also killed 17 civilians, including 12
children, said: “In response to the Israeli assassination of any
leader from our movement ... we will kill 100 Zionists at least.”
The
group said the university bombing, which killed four Americans and a
French national, was “one of a series” of reprisals for the July
22 Gaza air raid that killed Shehada and 17 other Palestinian,
including 12 children.
“We
ask our military groups to continue in military operations and martyr
operations,” it said, in a reference to Hamas' attacks on Israeli
targets.
It
blamed Wednesday’s blast on the Israeli occupation of east Jerusalem
and vowed to “teach (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and
(Defense Minister Binyamin) Ben Eliezer a lesson after they came to
assassinate our leader.”
The
group also criticized U.S. President George W. Bush, whom they called
the “head criminal,” for his support of Israel and said Hamas
would pursue its resistance.
“We
say to America, we are not afraid.”
Meanwhile
in occupied Jerusalem, the Israeli army on Thursday destroyed two
Palestinian houses, including the home of a bomber in Beit Jala, on
the edge of the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem, an Israeli army
spokesman said, AFP reported.
The
bomber, Haza Ata Yossef, 19, blew himself up on Tuesday in a downtown
Jerusalem snack bar, injuring seven Israelis.
The
Israeli army also demolished the Jenin refugee camp home of an Islamic
Jihad member, the spokesman said.
Yossef’s
father Yusuf told AFP that the motivation for his son’s attack was a
hit-and-run by a car of Jewish settlers on his uncle Walid, 36, two
weeks ago which left him seriously injured and in hospital.
He
said his son, a Muslim, had been a model student at a Christian school
in Beit Jala.
The
Israeli security cabinet met Wednesday to consider new ways of
countering bombers after a renewed attack the day before at a snack
bar in Jerusalem, the first in the city since Israeli invaded the West
Bank on June 19.
Officials
said the new tactics could include punitive demolitions of the
bombers’ homes and possible expulsion of their relatives to the Gaza
Strip.
While
the Israeli army is arresting scores of Palestinians and conducting
extreme security measures, the body of an Israeli who had been
shot dead was found on Thursday in the West Bank, near the town of
Tulkarem on the boundary with Israel, Israeli public radio said.
It
was not immediately clear if the man was a Jewish settler.
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