JENIN, West Bank, 25 November — The murder of a senior leader of the Hamas group by Israel on Friday drew sharp condemnation from the Arab League and France yesterday as thousands of Palestinian mourners in the West Bank and Gaza vowed to support revenge attacks in Israel.
In apparent retaliation, an Israeli was killed and two others were wounded in a Palestinian mortar attack on their outpost in central Gaza. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli Army on the report of the incident near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in central Gaza.
And Israeli tanks made an incursion into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia and shelled a school. The tanks rolled 800 meters into the Palestinian town and fired at least three shells at a school, they said, adding that there had so far been no reports of injuries.
Some 50,000 Palestinians marched from the West Bank city of Jenin to nearby Nablus in the funeral procession of Hamas military leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud. His death in an Israeli helicopter missile strike on his car near Nablus, is certain to complicate a new US mission to end 14 months of violence. His deputy, Ayman Hashaikah, and his brother, Ma’moun Hashaikah, died with him.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israel Radio that Hanoud was a "professional terrorist" planning future attacks and that killing him was an act of self-defense.
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo accused Israel of trying to scupper the US peace effort. Former US Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns are due to arrive in the region tomorrow.
France and the Arab League condemned the killing and its timing on the eve of the US officials’ visit. A French Foreign Ministry spokesman criticized the "particularly inappropriate and irresponsible act (of killing Hanoud)...at a time when parties have been asked to resume dialogue to bring about a cease-fire".
In Cairo, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Israel’s killings of Palestinians and other acts of violence constituted "a serious challenge" to the US peace initiative. The attack on Hanoud brought to at least seven the number of Palestinians to die violently on Friday, one day after five Palestinian boys were killed in an explosion in the Gaza Strip that Israel admitted resulted from a booby-trap. At least 720 Palestinians have been killed in an uprising against Israeli occupation since September 2000.
