Israeli army sharpshooters killed an activist of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas in the West Bank town of Qalqilya on Sunday, Palestinian security sources said.
Abdul Rahman Hamad, 35, was on the roof of his home a few hundred meters (yards) from the Green Line separating the West Bank from Israel when he was shot several times in the head, reported AFP.
Israel Security officials have confirmed that Israel was responsible for the killing of a senior member of the Hamas military wing, claiming that he was involved in the planning of the suicide bomb attack at the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv on June 1, in which 22 people, most of them teenagers, were killed, according to Haaretz.
Israeli army radio said it was a "targeted" operation, a euphemistic term given to the series of assassinations adopted as an official Israeli policy since November 2000, which has seen more than 50 Palestinians accused of "terrorist" acts dead, including top leaders like Abu Ali Mustapha, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP.
The radio said the hit had been carried out by an elite army unit.
A total of 874 people have now been killed in the year-old Intifada, among them 675 Palestinians and 176 Israelis, according to AFP tally.
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio: "This is a crime and means the Israeli promises for calm are mere lies and we cannot trust them."
The killing was the first targeted liquidation of a suspected Palestinian militant since Palestinian President Yasser Arafat met Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on September 26 to shore up a tentative ceasefire arrangement.
Hamad was reportedly part of the armed wing of Hamas and been expelled to Lebanon in the 1990s with around 400 Islamic militants before being allowed to return. He had had been arrested by Israeli forces seven times.
He was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in June, but was released in August and resumed his activities against Israel, said the Israelis.
Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin merely said "this terrorist will not be able to kill any more innocent people."
"The Israeli cabinet decided recently, after the terrorist attacks continued, to exercise its right to self-defense and take all the steps necessary whenever we know an attack is about to be committed," he said.
Palestinian officials say the targeted killings amount to "state terrorism."
Haaretz said that there were no Israelis injured over the weekend in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. There were some 30 shooting and bomb attacks in the territories on Friday, but the violence dropped off markedly on Saturday.
Israel Radio also reported that Israeli troops will protect Palestinians near Jewish settlements in the Nablus area during the olive harvest. The decision was taken after incidents in past years in which Palestinians have been attacked by settlers during the olive picking, said the Tel Aviv-based daily.
Israel was supposed to announce Sunday its decision to remove the blockade of the Palestinian lands, imposed since the outbreak of the Intifada in September last year – Albawaba.com
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