Truce abandoned after Israel kills Hamas leader

Palestinian militants called off a two-month-old truce after Israel killed a Hamas leader with a volley of missiles yesterday, and tens of thousands of Hamas supporters marched in protest through the streets of Gaza City, vowing revenge.

According to aides, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas had ordered a major crackdown and drew up lists of militants to be arrested, but scrapped the plans after the assassination.

Israel said it could not wait any longer for the Palestinians to act after a Hamas bus bombing on Tuesday that killed 20 people, including six children, in Jerusalem. Gideon Meir, a Foreign Ministry official, said the Palestinians should have moved faster.

“If there had been a will ... of the Palestinian leadership to really take action, they could have done it in an hour, two hours after the horrific terrorist attack,” he said.

About a dozen Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers moved into Jenin late yesterday, the second night of incursions into West Bank towns hunting for militants.

The escalating violence posed the most serious threat yet to the US-led “road map” peace plan, launched three months ago. US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that “the end of the road map is a cliff that both sides will fall off of” and urged them to pull back.

But that appeared unlikely after Tuesday’s bus bombing and the missile strike. In the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of Hamas supporters took to the streets after evening prayers yesterday in a massive show of strength. Gunmen fired in the air and about 15 men marched in long robes – a signal that they are willing to become suicide bombers.

The target of the Israeli rocket attack yesterday was Ismail Abu Shanab, 53, a prominent Hamas spokesman and US-educated engineering professor who was considered one of the more pragmatic members of the group and who pushed the movement to call their truce on June 29. Israel said he was involved in terror attacks, including the bus bombing.

The militants’ unilateral cease-fire had quelled violence for several weeks, though there had been three suicide bombings in the past two weeks.

An Israeli helicopter fired five missiles at Abu Shanab’s white station wagon as it slowed down for a speed bump on one of Gaza’s busiest streets. Fire and smoke engulfed the car and Abu Shanab’s scorched, decapitated body hung from the driver’s side window.

Two Abu Shanab bodyguards were also killed, and 15 bystanders were hurt.

The US government stopped short of saying the Israeli retaliation was justified. “Israel has a right to defend herself but Israel needs to take into account the effect of the actions they take on the peace process,” said press secretary Scott McClellan, who was accompanying US President George W Bush on a flight to Oregon.

Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, said the truce was off. The smaller Islamic Jihad group and renegades from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement joined in the announcement.

In a warning to Israelis, Yassin said: “You will pay the price for the crimes of (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon.” In Beirut, the group said in a statement that ”our response to this despicable crime will, God willing, be earth shaking”.

Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in scores of bombings, usually follows through on its threats. In an early response yesterday, it fired 15 mortal shells at Jewish settlements and army outposts in the Gaza Strip. At least one round hit a house, damaging the roof and a porch.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip also fired four home-made rockets at Israeli towns last night, the army said. No one was reported wounded, but one of the Qassam rockets damaged a house in the town of Sderot, which is just a few miles from Sharon’s private retreat, Sycamore Ranch.

Hamas claimed responsibility, and officials said Israeli troops in two armoured vehicles closed the main road linking northern and southern Gaza Strip.

A spokesman for Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan said security forces were working on the details of a Palestinian crackdown of militant groups, including putting together lists of people to be arrested, when word of Abu Shanab’s killing arrived. The crackdown was then put on hold.

The spokesman, Elias Zananiri, said the Palestinian government had told the US, Egypt and Jordan of its plans for a crackdown, and believed the Israelis were also aware of the plan.

Abbas denounced the missile strike as an “ugly crime,” and his information minister, Nabil Amr, accused Israel of sabotaging the Palestinian Authority’s attempts to rescue the truce and implement the road map.