Founder of Hamas Dies in Israeli Strike

Missiles fired from an Israeli military helicopter killed Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin early today, striking down the highest-profile symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israel in the Gaza Strip and prompting furious threats of massive retaliation from his militant group.

Yassin, a quadriplegic who used a wheelchair, was on his way home from dawn prayers at a Gaza City mosque when the strike occurred. Witnesses said the helicopter fired two missiles, killing Yassin and seven other people. More than a dozen others were injured.

As news of Yassin’s death spread, thousands of Palestinians made their way to the scene, where blood stained the sidewalk amid shattered glass from smashed storefronts. Some people searched the ground for remnants of Yassin’s body. The crowd chanted, “Revenge! Revenge!” and Hamas militants fired weapons in the air.

The assassination comes less than a week after Israeli officials threatened a heightened offensive against militants following a suicide bombing at the seaport of Ashdod.

Palestinians lashed out at Israel for targeting a spiritual leader and promised to strike back. Within an hour of the attack, Israeli forces around the country were placed on alert in anticipation of a possible response.

Ismail Haniya, a senior Hamas leader, said: “The Zionist enemy today breached all the boundaries and borders. Today it got the Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who was a symbol for the [Palestinian] nation and its dignity.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei called the strike “cowardly and dangerous” and said it threatened to escalate the cycle of violence. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared three days of mourning, and a funeral for Yassin was planned this afternoon.

In Washington, a senior State Department official said the administration was in touch with Palestinian and Israeli officials.

“We urge all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.

In hitting Yassin, Israel struck down the head of a group whose fighters have been responsible for many of the dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians since the latest Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began 42 months ago. But many Palestinians regarded Yassin as a moderating influence inside the movement, which in addition to its military wing runs hospitals and schools that offer critical services to thousands of Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza Strip.

But Israeli officials said Yassin was instrumental in Hamas’ violent activities.

“There’s no difference between a military leader and a political leader,” said Maj. Sharon Feingold, an Israeli military spokeswoman. “Yassin is the man behind the phenomenon of suicide bombers and behind the murders of so many Israelis.”

Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio: “I have long since said that Yassin’s blood is forfeit, that neither he nor his friends are immune. He and others lead the group of vipers that head the murderous Palestinian Hamas terror against us. With such sane ones, who needs lunatics?”

Boim defended the strike, saying, “So long as this terror continues, it is our duty to continue confronting it and strike at terror until we bring security to the state of Israel. It won’t be possible to talk before this terror stops. So long as it continues, we will not return to the negotiating table.”

It was Israel’s second recent attempt to kill Yassin, 67, under its controversial policy of “targeted killings” of militant leaders. In September, he survived a bomb dropped by an Israeli aircraft on a Gaza City building where he was meeting with other Hamas officials.

In January, following a suicide bombing that killed four Israelis at the main crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, Boim warned that Yassin was “marked for death.” But no attempt had been made to assassinate him in the two months since. Israel accused Yassin of approving the suicide attack, which marked the first time that Hamas had employed a female bomber.

In his wheelchair, Yassin cut a withered figured beneath his customary white head scarf. Despite the previous attempts on his life and the threats against others, he remained defiantly in the public eye, saying that if the Israelis wanted to kill him, they could. He openly attended mosque, helped along by a retinue of aides and bodyguards, and often spoke to reporters after prayers.

Analysts said the killing was sure to invite a response from Hamas, and possibly other militant groups.

“It is obvious that the revenge for a figure of such importance will have to come,” said Yohanan Tzoref, a counter-terrorism expert, “but it is too soon to know when, where, what kind.”

Tzoref said the most likely candidate to assume Yassin’s role within Hamas was the group’s spokesman, Abdulaziz Rantisi, who survived an Israeli airstrike last year.

The assassination comes at a pivotal moment in the Gaza Strip. Israel is considering a proposal by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to evacuate most or all of the Jewish settlements there as a way to reduce friction with the Palestinians and relieve the army of having to defend the settlements against attack by Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas.

The proposal has met fierce opposition among Sharon’s right-wing political allies, but Israeli opposition figures have questioned whether he will go through with the withdrawal.

On Sunday, Sharon met with his party’s Cabinet members in an attempt to win support for the Gaza Strip pullout, gaining a key, though conditional endorsement from Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the weeks since Sharon suggested withdrawing from the Gaza Strip -- captured from Egypt during the 1967 Middle East War -- Israel and the militants have traded attacks with growing intensity. Israeli helicopters have struck at militant leaders from the air, while the militants have unleashed attacks at the Erez border crossing and battled Israeli soldiers during military raids.

The crossing, used by thousands of Palestinians to get to jobs in Israel, was shut down today, only a day after it had been reopened. It was closed after the double suicide bombing at the busy Ashdod seaport that was carried out by attackers from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian fighters hope to cast the proposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a military defeat for Israel. For their part, Israeli officials do not want to appear to have been chased out.

Israeli commentators have drawn parallels to Israel’s chaotic pullout from Lebanon in 2000 -- a humiliating image that Israel does not want to see repeated if it leaves the Gaza Strip.

It remains to be seen whether assassinating Yassin will weaken Hamas, whose ranks have been thinned somewhat by prior strikes and through Israel’s regular incursions. But some predicted that the group would gain support in wake of the strike.

Essam Erian, spokesman of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, one of the oldest Islamic radical movements, said: “I think it will have a very strong effect in the whole region against the Americans themselves and against the state of Israel. S.A. Yassin was not only the founder and leader of Hamas, but an important figure to all Muslims and Arabs. This will have a very strong impact.”

Yassin, who was paralyzed in a fall as a young man, suffered only minor wounds during the airstrike on Sept. 6. That attempt was part of a wave of Israeli strikes targeting Hamas’ top ranks, driving many of the leaders into hiding. Among those killed was senior leader Ismail abu Shanab, who was hit by a missile in August as he drove in Gaza City.

Israel said its attacks were at least partly responsible for a drop in suicide bombings during the second half of last year.

Yassin was born in 1936 in a Palestinian village near the modern-day Israeli city of Ashkelon. He later became a teacher and an imam at a Gaza City mosque, founding Hamas in 1987. He was jailed by Israel in 1989 for ordering attacks by Hamas guerrillas against Israeli targets, but was freed in 1997.

The strike came a day after fresh fighting in the Gaza Strip left at least seven Palestinians dead. During one of two Israeli raids Sunday, a Hamas member and his wife died when soldiers’ gunfire detonated a bag of explosives carried by the suspect, identified as Basem Kadeh. He was responsible for building rockets and mortars used by militant groups against Israeli settlements and army outposts in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israelis.

The army said two other fighters also were killed in the fighting. The dead included a bystander. The army demolished Kadeh’s house before withdrawing later in the morning.

Overnight, two other Palestinians were reported killed during a second incursion in the central Gaza Strip.

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Slain Hamas leader

* Sheik Ahmed Yassin: Founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Islamic Resistance Movement

* Age: 67

* Family: Wife, Halima. Eight daughters, three sons.

* Occupation: Teacher of religion and Arabic. He preached in Gaza’s mosques for two decades that Palestinians had no hope of reclaiming land lost to Israel or establishing their own state until they adhered strictly to the precepts of Islam.

* Education: Al Azhar University, Cairo, where he joined the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood.

* Hamas, Islamic Resistance Movement: Hamas began in 1987 at the start of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli rule.

Yassin was imprisoned by Israel in 1989, sentenced to life plus 15 years. Released 1997 and returned to Gaza, where he injected new life into Hamas, which is committed to the destruction of Israel.

Yassin injured his spinal cord while playing soccer on the beach in Gaza in 1952 at the age of 16. His family had fled there from Ashkelon as refugees after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Gaza was then under Egyptian administration. Yassin was paralyzed from the neck down, blind in one eye and grew increasingly deaf.

Yassin was again injured in an assassination attempt in September 2003. He repeatedly denied having anything to do with planning terrorist attacks.

“We will not bow to pressure, and resistance will continue until the occupation is destroyed,” he said in January.

Source: Times reporting.

Staff writer Ellingwood reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Abu Shammalah from Gaza City. Staff writer Megan Stack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia also contributed to this report.