Israel Kills Top Hamas Leader

An Israeli missile strike killed Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi as he rode in his car Saturday evening, hospital officials said. Rantisi's son Mohammed and a bodyguard were also killed in the attack.

The militant Hamas leader was one of Israel's top targets after it assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin in an airstrike last month.

Rantisi's car was hit with missiles Saturday evening on the road outside his home, leaving only the burned, destroyed vehicle. After the explosion, Israeli helicopters were heard in the area.

Rantisi was taken to the hospital in critical condition, his body pocked with bloody wounds and blood streaming from his head and neck. He was taken to emergency surgery but died five minutes after arriving at the hospital.

Palestinian officials lashed the Israeli strike.

"We condemn in strongest possible terms this Israeli crime of assassinating Dr. Rantisi. This is state terror, and the Israeli government is fully responsible for the consequences of this action," Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said.

Witnesses said there were three people in the car at the time of the explosion. Five pedestrians were also wounded, hospital officials said.

The dead included Akram Nassar, 35, Rantisi's personal bodyguard and his son Mohammed, 27, hospital officials said. Rantisi's wife was in the car, but her condition and location was not known, hospital sources and Hamas said.

About 2,000 angry Palestinians marched through the streets carrying pieces of Rantisi's car shouting, "revenge, revenge."
Shooting was heard in the center of Gaza City and people were chanting Rantisi's name.

"This blood will not be wasted," said Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader at the hospital. "We are not going to give up."

Rantisi was Hamas' top leader in Gaza and one of the most hard-line members of the militant movement. He rejected all compromise with Israel and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel had previously tried to kill Rantisi June 10 when three Apache helicopters fired at least seven missiles toward Rantisi's car in a crowded Gaza thoroughfare, reducing his vehicle to a scorched heap of metal. Rantisi escaped with a wound to the right leg. Two Palestinian bystanders were killed.

In a retaliatory attack the next day, 16 Israelis were killed in a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials justified the attack as part of the ongoing battle against militants who have killed more than 900 Israelis in attacks over the past 3-1/2 years of violence.

"We have to continue this war, every time and every place. And this story with Rantisi shows how the army can get everywhere. We have to continue, we have no other choice," Cabinet Minister Gideon Ezra told Israel Radio.

Israel has stepped up strikes on Hamas in advance of a proposed unilateral pullout from Gaza. Israeli officials have said they hope a string of military successes to show that the militant group was not driving it out of the coastal strip.

The explosion occurred Saturday night a block from Rantisi's house in the Sheik Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, about 100 yards from where Yassin was buried after Israel assassinated him last month.

Since then, Israel has vowed to kill the entire leadership of the Islamic militant organization, "one after another," as CBS News Correrspondent David Hawkins puts it.

Israeli sources said Saturday they struck at Rantisi at the first available opportunity and said he was planning a large attack on Israel to solidify his leadership of Hamas and to retaliate for Yassin's killing.
Israel has been on high alert for a suicide bombing since Yassin's March 22 killing. After Rantisi was killed, Israeli prisons holding Palestinian prisoners went on high-alert, fearing possible riots.

During the mourning period for Yassin, Rantisi was defiant about Israel's threats against him.

"We will all die one day. Nothing will change. If by Apache or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache," he said.

Earlier Satrurday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned U.S. support for Israel's position on two of the thorniest issues in the Mideast conflict, saying no one can negotiate away the Palestinians' rights.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at an industrial zone between Israel and Gaza, injuring four Israelis, Israeli officials said.

President Bush angered Palestinians when he said Wednesday that Israel would be able to keep some large settlement blocs and would not have to absorb Palestinian refugees under any peace deal.

"No one in this world has the right to give away our land and our rights," Arafat said in a message broadcast to a rally of about 1,500 people in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "Our people and its leadership are the only ones that can legitimately speak on behalf of our nation."

Arafat had not directly commented on Mr. Bush's remarks and even Saturday he did not refer to Mr. Bush or Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by name. Sources inside the Palestinian Authority said Arafat and other leaders were upset by the remarks, but were confused as to how to respond.

Mr. Bush also endorsed Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and a small section of the West Bank.

Jordan's foreign minister on Saturday also criticized Mr. Bush's endorsement of an Israeli plan to maintain contentious Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.

Marwan Muasher's comments came ahead of Wednesday's scheduled talks in the United States between Mr. Bush and Jordan's King Abdullah II, a close U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Muasher told reporters in Amman, Jordan that his nation wants assurances that Washington is still committed to an Arab-Israeli settlement based on exchanging land-for-peace and creating a Palestinian state in line with the U.S.-backed road map plan.

On Saturday, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up inside the Erez industrial zone in the northern Gaza Strip, injuring four Israeli security workers, military officials said.

Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia affiliated with Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed joint responsibility and identified the bomber as Fadi Al-Amoudi, 22, from Beit Lahiya.

Israeli rescue services said one of the injured was in critical condition, one was in moderate condition and the other two were lightly wounded. The bomber was killed.

The explosion happened as the bomber was leaving the industrial zone to return to the Gaza Strip, the army said. About 6,000 Palestinians work in factories producing plastics, textiles, iron, electronics at the zone in northern Gaza.

Erez, also the main crossing point into Israel, has been a frequent target of attack by Palestinian militants in recent months.

The attack occurred on Palestinians' annual day of solidarity with prisoners held by Israel.

About 7,000 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails on suspicion they were involved in violence against Israel. Most were rounded up in army raids during more than three years of fighting.

"Your people will never forget you," Arafat said of the prisoners. "You are the ones that held up the banner of struggle for the sake of Palestine, for the sake of establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

In a Gaza City march, parents carried pictures of their imprisoned sons and daughters. Actors dressed as Israeli soldiers and Palestinian prisoners played out scenes on the back of a truck draped with barbed wire, with "soldiers" beating shackled and blindfolded "prisoners."

Leaders of the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups threatened to kidnap Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips in future prisoner swaps with Israel - a tactic successfully used by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.

"There is no policy except the policy of kidnapping soldiers so they can be exchanged with our prisoners," said Abdullah Shami, the Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza. "This tactic will be used by all the Palestinian factions."

A Hezbollah prisoner swap with Israel on Jan. 29 resulted in the release of more than 400 Palestinians and other Arabs from Israeli prisons, boosting the group's standing with the Palestinian public. Hezbollah handed over an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.

In the West Bank city of Hebron, protesters burned U.S. and Israeli flags and chanted slogans "No peace without the release of prisoners."