Israel: Hamas leaders are 'marked for death'

Israel has decided to target top Hamas leaders, including its founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, officials said today.

The move seemed sure to speed up a cycle of tit-for-tat violence that has claimed at least 46 lives over the last four days.

The bloodshed is threatening a US-backed peace plan that aims to end the fighting and lead to a Palestinian state by 2005.

Israel decided to escalate its war on Hamas after the Islamic militant group rejected ceasefire talks with the Palestinian Authority last week, an Israeli security official said.

All Hamas leaders are now marked for death, he said. They are considered “ticking bombs” and therefore legitimate targets, because they order attacks against Israelis, he added.

Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, said “there is no immunity for anybody who either orders or executes terrorist activities.”

Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper that “from now on, everyone is in the crosshairs all the time,” including Yassin.

Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, insisted there was no policy change, but said: “We don’t target political leaders, but if those leaders have politics of murder, we go after them.”

Israel rejects Hamas’ claim there is a strict separation between the group’s political leaders, including Yassin, and the military wing which has killed hundreds of Israeli troops and civilians.

During the past 32 months of fighting, Israel has killed more than 100 wanted Palestinians in targeted attacks, including many from the Hamas military wing.

The group’s top political leaders were left alone, possibly because of Israel’s fear of a bloody backlash.

However, Israel recently developed a contingency plan for going after the top leaders. The plan was activated last week, after Hamas broke off talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on halting attacks on Israelis, the security official said.

The first target was Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas co-founder and spokesman.

The 55-year-old former doctor escaped an Israeli missile strike on Tuesday with minor injuries, while his bodyguard and a bystander were killed.

In response, a Hamas suicide bomber killed 17 people and wounded more than 70 in a Jerusalem bus attack a day later and Hamas threatened more bombings.

Israel, in turn, carried out three more missile strikes that killed five Hamas operatives and commanders, along with 13 bystanders, in Gaza City. About 70 people were wounded in those attacks.

Hamas has ordered an all-out assault on Israelis and urged foreigners to leave Israel for their own safety.

Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, accused Sharon of declaring war on Hamas. “We accept the challenge,” Zahar said. “Every Israeli is a target for us.”

A poll published today in Yediot showed that 58% of Israelis believe the military should temporarily halt the killing of militants to give Abbas a chance to establish his influence in his government.

Late yesterday, Palestinians shot dead an Israeli motorist in the West Bank, and Israeli soldiers went in to the West Bank town of Jenin and killed two Islamic Jihad activists. Two more Israeli motorists were wounded today when they came under fire near the town of Ramallah.

Also today, the army blew up an apartment belonging to the family of Wednesday’s suicide bomber, a 17-year-old school student from Hebron.

The nearby home of another Palestinian gunman was also destroyed.

With the road map peace plan leading nowhere, US Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet other members of the so-called “Quartet” of Mideast mediators - the EU, UN and Russia – next week in Jordan.

Powell called on Abbas to work harder to rein in the militants.

“We want him to use that limited capability as effectively as he can,” he said.