Steve Quayle News Alerts

July 1, 2002

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas extremists promised Monday to avenge Israel's assassination of a senior West Bank bombmaker for the Islamic militant group who Israel said was responsible for the deaths of nearly 120 people. Israeli special forces struck a blow to Hamas when they killed Mohaned Tahir, 26, on Sunday. Soldiers raked a house in the West Bank city of Nablus where Taher was staying with machine-gun fire, fired in a tank shell, then razed the house with a bulldozer.

The Israeli army said Tahir was responsible for a June 18 bus attack in Jerusalem that killed 19 Israelis and prompted Israel's latest military campaign in which it has taken over most major towns and cities in the West Bank. Tahir also was behind a June 2001 suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco that killed 21 others, most of them teenagers, the army said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Tahir's killing "a very important operation" of self-defense for Israel. "I speak about a murderer that committed the most terrible crimes, and our position is — and I am glad it is also the position of President Bush — that there is no compromise with terror." Bush has supported Israel's right to defend itself, though Washington has said it opposes targeted killings.

Sources within Hamas described Tahir as a leading bombmaker in the group's military wing, Izzadine al-Qassam. Israeli authorities handed his body over to the Palestinians early Monday, and a funeral was expected when there is a break in the curfew confining city's 115,000 residents to their homes.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab called Tahir's killing a "dirty crime." When asked if Hamas planned revenge, he said: "Our people cannot forget the blood of their heroes and their people killed."

Hamas sources in the West Bank, speaking on condition of anonymity, said revenge for Tahir's death is their top priority.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer brushed off the threats and said Israel would continue to do whatever is necessary to protect itself against suicide bombers.

"There is no lack of engineers," Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio, using the Palestinian term for bombmakers. Tahir, he said, was involved in nearly every Hamas bombing in the past few months — building bombs, planning attacks and preparing bombers. He said Tahir was responsible for nearly 120 deaths.

Imad Darwazeh, 37, was also killed in the Israeli strike. Palestinians say Darwazeh was not a known Hamas activist. His brother, Salah Darwazeh, had been a member of Izzadine al-Qassam and was killed in an Israeli missile strike in July 2001.

Hamas has claimed responsibility for many of the 71 suicide bombings that have killed more than 200 Israelis in the past 21 months.

Tahir spent three years in a Palestinian prison but was released in September 2000, when the Palestinian uprising erupted after peace talks collapsed.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials, residents and hospital officials in Rafah refugee camp said that before dawn Monday, Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers moved into a neighborhood, firing on houses. They said residents fled and Palestinian gunmen engaged soldiers in a firefight; three Palestinians were injured.

Bulldozers demolished seven houses and damaged two others before leaving, residents said. The army said it destroyed three abandoned buildings near the Gaza-Egypt border and that grenades and explosives were directed at its troops, who returned fire. One soldier was slightly injured, the army said.

Israeli troops also entered Salfit town south of Nablus overnight and arrested Anan Hashash, 28, a senior activist in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia, Palestinian security officials said. Soldiers were searching homes and detaining some residents, they said.

Also Monday, anti-aircraft artillery fired by Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon on Israeli warplanes rained down on northern Israeli towns, damaging a wedding hall in Kiryat Shemona. There were no reports of injuries.

In an attempt to keep suicide bombers out of Jerusalem, Israel began building a towering electronic fence Sunday that will protect three sides of the city against Palestinian attacks, Ben-Eliezer said during a visit to the southern edge of Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem fence, which will stretch 30 miles, is similar to one that will separate part of the West Bank from Israel farther to the northwest. Construction on that fence began earlier this month, part of a larger plan to separate Israel from the West Bank — a distance of about 215 miles.

Palestinians want east Jerusalem for a capital of a future state, and they oppose fencing off the city from the West Bank. Jerusalem has been hit harder than any other Israeli city during the latest Israeli-Palestinian violence, and security forces have set up barricades to keep West Bank Palestinians from reaching Jerusalem.

The army, meanwhile, kept a tight grip on seven major Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank that it reoccupied nearly two weeks ago, carrying out arrest sweeps and hunting down militants. Sharon would not say when troops would pull back, reiterating he first requires "the full cessation of terror, hostility and incitement."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/07/01/hamas-revenge.htm