Israel targets Hamas chief

ISRAEL tried to kill the public face of Hamas yesterday, wounding Palestinian militant Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in a helicopter strike that brought swift calls for revenge and may shatter a US-backed peace plan.

Witnesses said two helicopter gunships fired seven missiles that set Mr Rantissi’s car ablaze in Gaza City, killing two people and wounding about 20.

Mr Rantissi leaped clear just in time and later vowed from his hospital bed to continue attacks on Israel.

Israeli security sources said he had been the target. Palestinian Prime Minister Mah described as “the criminal and terrorist Israeli attack”.

Though Hamas had defied Abbas’s plea for it to stop killing Israelis, Abbas said such Israeli actions “sabotage” the peace process.

Rantissi, 55, is a senior political aide to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and has taken on the informal role of spokesman for the Islamic group, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel and opposes the peace road map.

He has claimed centre stage over the past week in rejecting calls by Abbas to cease attacks on Israelis under the peace proposal that envisions creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

“We will maintain our jihad (holy struggle) and resistance until we kick out every single criminal Zionist from our land,” Rantissi told al-Jazeera television by telephone from Gaza’s Shifa Hospital. “Killing me will not give them security.”

Referring to Middle East summits with Mr Bush last week in Egypt and Jordan, Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said: “Israel’s assassination attempt aims to direct a deadly blow to international peace efforts.”

Israeli security sources said Rantissi tried to recruit Israeli Arabs into Hamas.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed on Sunday in Gaza in a rare joint attack by Hamas and two other Palestinian groups. All three gunmen were also killed. Troops also shot dead two gunmen who killed a soldier in the West Bank later on Sunday.

There was no official Israeli comment on yesterday’s missile attack, which also wounded Mr Rantissi’s teenage son.

Doctors and Hamas sources described Mr Rantissi’s condition as “good”.

Mr Rantissi told al-Jazeera, saying he had been wounded in his left arm, left leg and chest.

The strike was launched a day after Israel took first steps to meet a pledge under the internationally-backed road map by tearing down 10 of an estimated 60 Jewish settler outposts, all unauthorised by the Israeli government, in the West Bank.

The peace plan also calls on the Palestinian Authority to disarm and dismantle militant groups spearheading the 32-month-old uprising for statehood.

But Mr Abbas, who shook hands on the road map at a June 4 summit in Aqaba, Jordan, with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mr Bush, has sought dialogue with Hamas, hoping to seal a truce and avoid a Palestinian civil war.

But Hamas broke off cease-fire talks after the summit, accusing Abbas of making too many concessions to Mr Sharon.

In other violence yesterday, Israeli forces shot dead a wanted Palestinian who the army said resisted attempts to detain him in southern Gaza.