Israel will attempt to kill the entire leadership of Palestinian militant group Hamas, stepping up targeted attacks, Israeli security sources said on Tuesday.
The report comes after Israel attracted widespread international condemnation for its assassination of the Hamas founder and spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, on Monday.
Security sources said the policy of assassinating Hamas leaders had on Monday night been reaffirmed at a five-hour meeting between the Israeli Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, and security officials at the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv. The meeting followed the helicopter missile attack in which Yassin was killed in Gaza.
Israeli army radio reported that Mofaz had told the meeting that Israel would continue its policy of ”liquidating terrorists”, and that Hamas was a ”strategic enemy of Israel and should be destroyed”. Security sources said the decision to kill the Hamas leadership had been secretly made by the Israeli Cabinet last week after a double suicide bombing at an Israeli seaport.
The sources said that officials at Monday’s meeting had agreed to continue targeted attacks when opportunities presented themselves, and not to wait for a Hamas strike before taking action.
There are fears the assassination of Yassin — who founded Hamas in 1987 — will result in a dramatic escalation of violence in the region.
The group responded to his death by calling for Muslims around the world to attack Israelis, and Americans who support them, with ”unprecedented severity”.
Jerusalem’s usually lively streets were mostly deserted on Monday night, due to fears of a Hamas attack. On Tuesday, buses in the city remained empty.
Checkpoints were set up around major cities, and the Tel Aviv police commander, Yossi Sedbon, told army radio that he expected the alert level to remain high for at least a month.
A border closure, preventing Palestinians from entering Israel from the West Bank and Gaza, remained in effect, and the Israeli army had increased forces throughout Palestinian areas, officials said.
Five Palestinians died in violence following Yassin’s killing on Monday, but only minor stone-throwing clashes were reported in the West Bank on Tuesday.
On Tuesday morning, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia went to the Gaza Strip to offer his condolences to Hamas, Palestinian officials said.
Qureia was due to attend a ceremony at the Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City, which Hamas has turned into a reception area for mourners.
About 200 000 Gaza residents on Monday poured onto the streets to follow Yassin’s coffin in a funeral procession. Mourners at the funeral heard Hamas leaders call for a broadening of the conflict with Israel.
The Palestinian Authority has declared three days of mourning, and stores throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip were closed today.
Yassin’s assassination, in which seven others also died, received widespread backing in Israel. The Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper published a poll showing that 60% of Israelis believed that killing Yassin had been the correct action to take, with 32% thinking it had been wrong. However, 81% of Israelis believed that the assassination would lead to an increase in militant attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — who had personally approved the missile strike against Yassin — described him as ”the first and foremost leader of the Palestinian murderers”. Mofaz said that Hamas had killed 377 Israelis and wounded more than 2 000 in hundreds of attacks.
The White House, although refusing to condemn the killing, said it was ”deeply troubled” by it.
Yassin was the most prominent Palestinian leader to be killed by Israel in more than three years of fighting, and security officials are watching closely to see who will take his place.
Abdel Aziz Rantisi, has emerged — at least initially — as the man widely expected to take control of Hamas. He has a reputation for being a hardliner.
Rantisi, a 54-year-old who escaped an Israeli assassination attempt last June, opposes even a temporary truce with Israel.
Ismail Hanieh, a senior Yassin aide, said that Hamas had suffered a blow to morale, but vowed that it would continue to carry out attacks on Israel.
”Sheik Yassin’s death is not going to harm or affect the movement. It’s going to give us encouragement to go ahead,” he said.
Meanwhile, an Islamist website on Tuesday published a statement threatening retaliation and purported to come from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade — a group linked to al-Qaeda that claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings on March 11.
Arabic television channel al-Jazeera reported that the statement said: ”Yassin’s blood will not have been shed in vain — we call on all the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades to avenge the sheikh of the Palestinian resistance by striking the tyrant of the century, America, and its allies.” — Guardian Unlimited Â