Hamas on Sunday promised vengeance against Israel for its assassination of one of the Palestinian group’s members in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Izz el-Deen al-Sheik Khalil was killed when his car exploded as he turned the ignition on Sunday morning.
Israeli government sources told the Associated Press that it was responsible, although the government made no official comment. Citing unnamed security sources, Israel’s Channel Two television also said it had been told Israel was behind the explosion.
Khalil (42) was expelled from Israel and the Palestinian territories in 1992, and eventually settled in Damascus where Hamas has its headquarters. After a suicide attack on two buses in Beersheba at the end of August, Israeli officials said they held Syria responsible and promised to retaliate.
The Syrian information ministry said in a statement that Khalil had not engaged in any activity while inside Syria, and that authorities were investigating the explosion. Ahmad Haj Ali, an adviser to the information minister, described it as a terrorist and cowardly action. ”This is not the first warning” Israel had tried to convey to Syria, Haj Ali said. ”What happened indicates that Israel’s aggression has no limits.”
The assassination, he said, ”was meant to deliver a message to the entire world that says: ‘We are capable of striking anywhere in accordance with the Israeli agenda.”’
Gideon Ezra, the Israeli minister for public security, said he had no knowledge of the assasination, but welcomed it. ”I am glad,” he said.
Israeli army chief Moshe Yaalon said this month that Israel would ”deal with… those who support terrorism”, including those in ”terror command posts in Damascus”.
Palestinian sources said Khalil was believed to be in charge of Hamas’s military wing outside the Palestinian territories. At his family home in Gaza City, relatives blamed Israel for his death. ”Since he left the country, we have had no contact with him because he chose to live a secret life,” said his brother Rafik.
A spokesperson for Hamas in Gaza said: ”Neither assassinations nor crimes will stop our resistance and jihad. Resistance will never be broken.”
Shai Feldman, director of the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, said: ”This is a boxing match in which each side scores points against each other. There are no knockouts.”
He surmised that Israel was capitalising on Syria’s relative weakness to try to force it to expel Palestinian s. The presence in Iraq of US troops on Syria’s border enhanced Israel’s freedom to operate.
Israel has assassinated its enemies on foreign soil for decades. In 1972 Golda Meir, the prime minister, ordered agents to assassinate everyone held responsible for the killing of 11 athletes at Munich.
This year Israel was blamed for a car bomb which killed Ghalib Awali, a Hizbullah leader in Beirut.
In 1997 two Israeli agents were arrested after injecting poison into the ear of the Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Amman. Israel was forced to deliver an antidote and release Hamas prisoners, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, to secure the release of its agents.
In Gaza on Sunday, Israeli soldiers continued an incursion into Khan Yunis refugee camp after an Israeli woman was killed by a mortar in Gush Katif settlement on Friday.
According to the United Nations relief and works agency, 230 people were made homeless when the army demolished 47 buildings. The army first banned journalists from entering the Gaza Strip.
Ghada Ageel, a resident of Khan Yunis, said soldiers had not stopped firing for three days. ”There are Apache helicopters in the air constantly, and people are very scared.” – Guardian Unlimited Â