Truce Ended After Israeli Airstrike

An Israeli helicopter firing missiles killed a top Hamas leader and two bodyguards Thursday in retaliation for a Jerusalem bus bombing this week that killed 20 people, including six children.

The attack prompted armed Palestinian groups to officially abandon a cease-fire already in ruins. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas called the airstrike “an ugly crime,” and his government halted what it said were plans to crack down on Hamas and other radical Islamic organizations.

Israeli officials described Ismail abu Shanab, the Hamas official slain in Gaza City, as a prime supporter and director of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks over the years. Hamas, along with Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s bus bombing, one of the most gruesome in the nearly three-year Palestinian uprising.

Abu Shanab was one of the three or four most senior elders of Hamas, a member of the inner circle around the organization’s supreme spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. A U.S.-educated engineer in his late 40s or early 50s, Abu Shanab served as the group’s chief political strategist and was regarded by some analysts as more moderate than some of his associates.

The response from Hamas was anything but moderate, however, promising another wave of violence across Israel that is sure to bring an armed response from the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“We urge all our cells of fighters in Palestine to strike in every corner of the Jewish state,” Hamas said in a statement.

At the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned the two sides Thursday not to turn their backs on the “road map” to peace. Progress on the U.S.-backed plan has been halting and incremental since it was unveiled four months ago, with each side accusing the other of shirking its obligations.

“The end of the road map is a cliff that both sides will fall off of,” Powell said. “I believe both parties understand that a way has to be found to go forward. The alternative is what? Just more death and destruction?”

In Gaza City, witnesses said Abu Shanab was traveling in the busy, affluent neighborhood of South Rimal early Thursday afternoon when the Israeli helicopter fired six missiles at his white Volkswagen Golf. Four missiles struck their target, nearly incinerating the Hamas leader and his bodyguards.

Israeli radio reported this morning that one of the dead bodyguards was a son-in-law of Yassin.

“The fire was very intense,” said Ala Alsaqa, who owns a flower and bird shop not far from the site. “It was burning and burning and burning. It was a horrible thing.”

Eighteen bystanders were wounded in the attack.

Ismail Haniyeh, a ranking Hamas leader, identified Abu Shanab’s body at a local hospital and annulled the temporary truce declared June 29 by the main Palestinian militias. The cease-fire was due to expire at the end of September.

“We are free from our commitments of the cease-fire,” Haniyeh said.

Thousands of angry Gazans flooded the scene of the airstrike, the hospital and Abu Shanab’s home, calling for revenge. Some demanded the resignation of Abbas, who has had trouble mustering popular support for his attempts to engage Israel diplomatically.

Hamas also called on Abbas to step down and leave the Palestinian territories, a sign of the widening rift between the militias and the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas has hesitated to confront the extremists head-on for fear of sparking a civil war. After Tuesday’s bombing, Abbas and his security minister, Mohammed Dahlan, sought approval from Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to hunt down the instigators and take other steps against militants, such as severing contact and confiscating weapons. It was unclear whether they received Arafat’s approval.

Those measures were now off the table, said Dahlan’s spokesman, Elias Zananiri, who criticized the Israeli side for not giving the Palestinian Authority time to mount a crackdown.

Israel said it had no choice but to go after militants because Abbas’ government had yet to begin disarming terrorist groups, as demanded by the road map, which also requires Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank. Many Israeli officials have dismissed the Palestinian cease-fire as a ploy for time to regroup and rearm.

On Wednesday, after the bus bombing, the Israeli government vowed to go after suspected militants in “pinpoint” strikes. Israeli media reported that the operations could continue for three or four weeks.

Tanks were reported in the West Bank city of Jenin early today, and Israeli radio said a dozen Palestinian fugitives had been detained across the West Bank. The army said militants fired several Kassam rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel late Thursday, but no injuries were reported.

Powell also called on Arafat, who wields ultimate authority over the Palestinian Authority government, to bolster Abbas’ standing and power to challenge extremist groups. It was an unusual appeal, because the White House has spent the last year trying to marginalize Arafat and often avoids even mentioning him by name.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the airstrike on Abu Shanab as an extrajudicial killing and urged the Israeli government to show restraint.

Israel has come under international criticism for its policy of “targeted killings,” which opponents label assassinations. Israeli soldiers have launched more than 100 missile strikes during the intifada, or uprising, but Thursday’s was the first since the announcement of the truce.

In killing Abu Shanab, Israel targeted a negotiator who reportedly acted as liaison between Hamas and Abbas when they agreed to the temporary cease-fire. Abu Shanab was only the third political leader of Hamas to be killed in two years; Israel has concentrated its firepower on the group’s military chiefs.

But Israeli security officials say that such distinctions are meaningless, contending that the political leaders are involved in orchestrating and approving military operations.

“There’s no question that there is a direct link between the heads of Hamas and the terrorists on the ground,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir.

Hamas, an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, is popular among Palestinians not just for its hard-line stance against Israel but also for its network of health clinics, schools and other social welfare institutions.

Abu Shanab was one of the primary advocates of turning Palestinian resistance into an armed struggle in the late 1980s, said terrorism expert Shalom Harari, a former defense advisor to the Israeli government.

Abu Shanab spent seven years in an Israeli prison before being released around the beginning of 1997. He thought of himself as a marked man, especially after a failed Israeli attempt in June to kill Hamas co-founder Abdulaziz Rantisi. A few days after that strike, Abu Shanab excused himself and cut short a live television interview when he heard Israeli helicopters overhead.

About a week ago, he moved to a different home, residents in Gaza said, but it was unclear whether that was an attempt to elude Israeli authorities.

Harari described Abu Shanab’s influence as nearly equal to Rantisi’s but said his death is not likely to hurt the organization irreparably. “Hamas has many heads,” Harari said. “This will not cripple them, but you have to look at it as not an isolated operation. I think it’s the first in a longer chain.”

The strike on Abu Shanab followed overnight raids and arrests of suspected militants by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm. Associated Press reported that at least 14 Palestinians were arrested and a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by gunfire.

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Chu reported from Jerusalem and King from Gaza City. Times staff writer Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.