Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News

GAZA, 18 April 2004 — Israel yesterday murdered new Hamas leader Abdelaziz Al-Rantissi. A US Apache helicopter fired two missiles as Rantissi rode in his car in Gaza City’s Labidid Street late in the evening. Rantissi’s son Mohammed and a bodyguard were also killed in the attack.

Rantissi’s assassination came a month after an Israeli missile attack killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Rantissi was taken to hospital in critical condition, his body riddled with wounds and blood streaming from his head and neck, and rushed into emergency surgery. But he died five minutes after arriving at the hospital.

Five pedestrians were also wounded in the attack, hospital officials said.

The dead included Akram Nassar, 35, Rantissi’s personal bodyguard and his son Mohammed, 27. Rantissi’s wife was in the car, but her condition or whereabouts were not known.

Israel expressed delight at the Hamas leader’s assassination. “We cannot fail to be pleased with this operation for it is necessary to continue to eliminate the terrorists as we did with Yassin,” Cabinet Minister Uzi Landau told Israeli commercial television.

The minister for immigration absorption, Tzipi Livni, said Rantissi’s assassination is “important to make people understand that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza as part of the prime minister’s disengagement plan cannot be interpreted as a victory for the terrorists.”

The killings came days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon received the enthusiastic endorsement of US President George W. Bush for his controversial disengagement plan.

The Palestinian government immediately condemned the killings and warned that the Israelis must bear full responsibility for the consequences.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiation minister, said Israel must bear full responsibility for the consequences of its “ugly crime”. “We condemn this ugly crime strongly and this state terrorism which the Israeli government has chosen to pursue with the assassination of Dr. Rantissi,” Erekat said.

Ismail Haniya, a possible contender to replace Rantissi, vowed that the 56-year-old’s blood “will not flow in vain.”

As news emerged of the strike, thousands of Hamas supporters descended on the hospital. About 2,000 angry Palestinians marched through the streets carrying pieces of Rantissi’s car shouting, “revenge, revenge.”

Israel had previously tried to kill Rantissi on June 10 when three Apache helicopters fired at least seven missiles at Rantissi’s car in a crowded Gaza thoroughfare, reducing his vehicle to a scorched heap of metal. Rantissi escaped with a wound to the right leg. Two Palestinian bystanders were killed.

Rantissi was the only Hamas leader who refused to go underground after the assassination of Yassin. He was born near the coastal city of Ashkelon and fled to the Gaza Strip with his family and thousands of other Arabs displaced during the war that led to the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

Co-founder of Hamas with Sheikh Yassin in 1987, Rantissi was named the group’s leader in Gaza after Israel’s killing of Yassin on March 22.

An Egyptian-trained pediatrician, Rantissi long acted as Hamas spokesman before succeeding Yassin. Camera crews trooped to his Gaza living room to hear him issue vows of revenge, often in calm, even tones, for Israel’s killing of Hamas activists.

Jailed off and on for years by Israel, Rantissi was among 415 men associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad expelled to southern Lebanon in 1992 after a wave of attacks on Israelis. Facing international pressure, Israel allowed them to return.

Hours before Rantissi’s murder, a Palestinian blew himself up at the Erez Crossing, killing an Israeli soldier and injuring three other soldiers. Witnesses later saw Israeli troops shooting indiscriminately at Palestinian houses.