Baby doctor named as Hamas leader

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas hard-liner, has been named acting leader of the group in Gaza, a spokesman said tonight.

Dr Rantisi will temporarily take over the tasks of assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, said Ismail Hanieh, a senior official in the Islamic militant group.

The 54-year-old paediatrician opposes any truce with Israel and rejects compromise with Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

Rantisi spent seven years in Israeli prisons and was expelled to Lebanon for one year in 1992.

He was jailed by the Palestinian Authority for 21 months in the late 1990s. Rantisi escaped an Israeli assassination attempt last June.