Posted on 04/17/2004 6:01:00 PM PDT by saquin
HE never used mobile phones and slept in a different house every night. But all the security precautions proved in vain last night as Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, leader of Hamas in Gaza for less than a month, was killed when his car was struck by two Israeli missiles, forcing the militant Palestinian group to start the search for a successor all over again.
Israeli security sources said last night Rantissi was assassinated because fresh intelligence had emerged of an imminent massive terror attack by Hamas.
The plot, they claimed, had been hatched in retaliation for the killing last month of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the previous Hamas leader. “We got authorisation from the prime minister to kill them all,” a security source said.
The Israeli foreign ministry described Rantissi as a “mastermind of terrorism, with blood on his hands”.
“As long as the Palestinian Authority does not lift a finger and fight terrorism, Israel will continue to have to do so itself,” said Jonathan Peled, a foreign ministry spokesman.
Ehud Olmert, the deputy prime minister, said that there would be more such assassinations. “No terrorist can go home to sleep at night thinking he is immune,” he said.
“They (militants) are in our crosshairs . . . and should run and hide from the Israeli forces who can get to them everywhere.”
The dramatic attack, however, met with immediate worldwide condemnation, including from Britain. “The British government has repeatedly made it clear that so-called ‘targeted assassinations’ of this kind are unlawful, unjustified, and counter-productive,” said Jack Straw, the foreign secretary.
An official at the US State Department urged Israel to “bear in mind the consequences of what it is doing”, but also called on Palestinians to “get a handle on terrorism”.
The official denied Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, had been given the green light for the attack during a meeting in Washington last week with President George Bush.
Hundreds of Hamas members and supporters flooded to the hospital where the severely injured Rantissi was taken and died. In chaotic scenes, a crowd of Palestinians swarmed around the wreckage of the white car, pulling out what appeared to be fragments of clothing.
One man stuck his hands into the wrecked car, pulled them out covered in blood and waved them in the air.
“Israel will regret this. Revenge is coming,” said Ismail Haniya, a senior leader of Hamas, which has been behind scores of suicide attacks against Israel in a three-year Palestinian intifada, or uprising, and has pledged to destroy the Jewish state.
“This blood will not be wasted. It is our fate in Hamas and it is our fate as Palestinians to die as martyrs,” said Haniya.
Rantissi, 56, was attacked as he drove along al-Galaa Road, a central thoroughfare near his home in Gaza City. The road has been nicknamed “Death Road” by Palestinians because so many of their militants have met their end there.
The two other men with him — both thought to have been his bodyguards — were killed instantly by the rockets, apparently fired from a helicopter.
Eyewitnesses said Rantissi ran about 15 yards from the car, collapsed and lost consciousness.
The Hamas leader, his body pocked with bloody wounds and blood streaming from his head and neck, was rushed to the hospital and into emergency surgery, but he died five minutes after arriving.
“I heard the sound of the explosion. It was a small one followed after less than two seconds by another one,” said Rawhi Ghazal, 35, who owns a nearby shop.
There were unconfirmed reports that Rantissi’s son, Mohammed, 27, had also been killed. Israeli media initially said that the Hamas leader’s wife had also been with them in the car, but there were no details of her fate.
A paediatrician by training, Rantissi was a co-founder of Hamas and had long been one of the most powerful figures within the organisation. He consistently argued that Palestinians have a right to resist Israel by any means — including the suicide bombing of civilians.
He took over as Hamas’s leader in Gaza after the killing on March 22 of Yassin, who was struck by an Israeli rocket as he was pushed in his wheelchair out of a mosque at the end of morning prayers.
Israel had tried to kill Rantissi last June when three Apache helicopters fired at least seven missiles at his car in a crowded Gaza street, reducing his vehicle to a scorched heap of metal. Rantissi escaped with a wound to his right leg. Two Palestinian bystanders were killed.
During the mourning period for Yassin, Rantissi was defiant about Israel’s threats against him. “We will all die one day. Nothing will change. If by Apache or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache,” he said at the time.
Hamas warned Sharon that the killing of the cleric had “opened the gates of hell”. It has so far proved an empty threat, however, and emboldened by the organisation’s weakness, Israel vowed to wipe out its senior members.
“The killing of Rantissi reflects the end of the Hamas leadership,” said one Israeli source. “Hamas’s ability to carry out attacks is diminishing, and it will take them a long time before a new leadership will emerge.”
Rantissi had long depicted himself as a Hamas politician with no links to the organisation’s military wing. But Israel refuses to accept the distinction and accused him of being a top decision-maker on attacks and of using his media role to incite violence.
It was not immediately clear who will succeed him, but one possible candidate is Mahmoud Zahar, 53, a relatively moderate Hamas leader.
As news of Rantissi’s death spread, a state of high alert was declared at the besieged headquarters of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, in Ramallah in the West Bank. Bodyguards were summoned from their homes and Arafat was moved to a secure room in his compound.
Earlier yesterday, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at the Erez checkpoint on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
Military sources said four security officers were injured in the blast. Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is part of Arafat’s Fatah faction, claimed joint responsibility for the attack.
The assassination of Rantissi came at the end of a week in which Sharon received a ringing endorsement from Bush for his plans to withdraw all troops and settlers from Gaza and from four settlements in the West Bank.
Sharon’s plan falls far short of Palestinian demands for a total pullout from the occupied territories, coupled with the right of Palestinians to return to their properties inside Israel.
It has also since emerged that the Israeli military has severe misgivings about the plan. Moshe Ya’alon, the chief of staff of the armed forces, sent a letter last week to Shaul Mofaz, the defence minister, saying his troops would not be ready to leave Gaza before the end of 2005 — at least a year later than has been talked about by the government.
Although Sharon gave no timetable, he had made it sound imminent that Israeli troops would withdraw from the Gaza Strip, home to 1m Palestinians and several thousand Jewish settlers guarded by garrisons of Israeli soldiers.
Tony Blair yesterday praised Sharon’s plan, saying it would reinvigorate last year’s “road map” peace proposals, which Britain supports.
“I don’t understand when people say this annihilates the road map,” he said. “Of course it doesn’t. It gives you an opportunity to get back into the road map process.”
He didn't die instantly. Good. :-)
The IDF was glad to oblige.
Now, back to the party, dancing and wailing. Gotta hand out candy to the kids!
It's rumored that this is what Rantissi's last words were.
HELP WANTED
APPLY ACROSS THE STREET
Okay. Happy to help.
Why can't they whack these guys on principle? Do they feel that they need some kind of special justification to take out the leader of a terrorist organization that has plagued Israel for decades? Oughtn't the very existance of Hamas and organisations like it be, by itself, sufficient reason to engage them?
Seems like the minute intelligence knows who and where the next leader of Hamas is, they ought to smoke him, too. And the one after that. And so on. Until bombs stop going off in Israel.
I guess I'll never be a politician.
Hey Rantisi: The relatives of the kids who were killed at the pizza parlor send their regards.
Cpl. Hicks
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