Israeli commandos kill Hamas leader

ISRAELI commandos killed a West Bank commander of the militant group Hamas in a raid yesterday that could deal a blow to reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’s battle for political survival.

An Israeli soldier was also killed and four wounded in the operation in the city of Nablus, which ended when soldiers blew up an apartment building where Mohammad al-Hanbali had been holed up, making 28 families homeless. The spectacle of the seven-storey structure crumpling in a heap of dust was likely to give ammunition to opponents of Abbas’s efforts to promote a US-backed peace plan and persuade President Yasser Arafat to hand over control of Palestinian security forces.

The army said naval commandos, who also participate in ground-launched attacks, raided the building to detain Hanbali, 27, who opened fire at them from an elevator shaft where he had been hiding. Israeli security sources said he was chief commander of Hamas militants in the northern West Bank and responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.