Two low-profile Palestinian activists from the Hamas and Fateh movements top Israel's list of most-wanted people in the occupied Palestinian territories, according to a report by Haaretz on Thursday.
During talks brokered by CIA director George Tenet, Israel asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest Salah Shehada, Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip, and Jamal Abu Samadana, a Fateh official in the West Bank, but this has not been done, said the paper.
Shehada is currently considered to be the head of Hamas in Gaza, according to the paper, which quoted security sources as saying the activist was “close to Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and is in effect the main contact between the organization's political and military wings.”
The sources added that Shehada was personally responsible for most of the attacks carried out by Hamas from Gaza.
Such attacks have mostly been within the Gaza Strip, but some of them were directed at targets within Israel's borders, they said.
According to the same sources, Abu Samadana is from the Fateh movement and is a member of the largest and most influential clan in the Rafah area.
He has reportedly supported the "Popular Committees" of the Intifada and consistently refused to accept orders from the PA and its security apparatus.
According to Israeli security sources, Rafah has been the site of about half of the attacks carried out since the start of the ceasefire announced following the negotiations with Tenet.
Israel has recently resumed so-called targeted attacks on Palestinian activists, which the Jewish state says are essential to stopping anti-Israeli violence.
Hamas has been responsible for the majority of the attacks inside Israel since Palestinian President Yasser Arafat signed the 1993 Oslo peace accords, and its leaders have vowed to keep up the armed struggle against the Jewish state – Albawaba.com
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