Israel assassinated one of the founders of the military wing of Hamas and three other members of the movement in an airstrike on a car in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Hamas officials said.
An Israeli helicopter fired missiles at the car, killing Ibrahim al-Maqadma, 52, a top Hamas leader and a founder of the group, Hamas said.
The other three killed in the car were reportedly al-Maqadma's body guards. Two of them were identified as Khaled Juma, 32, and Ala Shukri, 30.
"The assassination of Ibrahim al-Maqadma will launch a new stage of war against the Jews," senior Hamas official Abdel-Azziz al-Rantissi told Reuters. "All Israeli leaders will be open targets for Hamas," he said.
"We encourage our cells to plan and prepare strikes against the occupiers ... especially Jewish political leaders," Hamas' military wing said in a statement. "The terrorist government will realize the size of the disaster that it has unleashed."
Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet official, criticized the air strike and said there is no longer due process in Israel. "This is more like the mafia than the government," Erekat said.
Later in the day, thousands of mourners packed the streets of Gaza City for al-Maqadma's funeral.
At the outset of March, 1996, following a wave of suicide attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Dr. al-Maqadma, a dentist, was arrested by the PNA and accused of heading the Hamas military wing. He was released a year later, and shortly afterwards he delivered an incendiary speech supporting suicide bombings inside Israel, following the bomb blast at a Tel Aviv cafe. Al-Maqadma told a Hamas rally that suicide bombs, not negotiations, would stop Israeli settlement building in Jerusalem.
He was then sought by the PNA, but managed to escape and went underground. In an interview with one of Hamas' official publications, he reportedly admitted being "an advisor" to the Brigades of Izziddin Al Qassam.
The missile strike came just hours after two Hamas members disguised as religious Jews killed an Israeli couple in a raid on the settlement of Kiryat Arba, near the West Bank city of Hebron.
Also Saturday, Palestinian sources said that a 23-year-old man was killed and eight others were wounded by Israeli fire in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya.
On Friday, the military wing of Hamas on claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide bombing on an Israeli bus Haifa that killed 15 people. The group said the attack was in retaliation for Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
"This retaliation is the beginning of a series of attacks," said Hamas in a statement. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
