NABLUS, West Bank, 23 August 2003 — Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians inside a West Bank hospital yesterday, extending a new spiral of violence that has smashed a cease-fire vital to the US-backed road map peace plan.
The killings came as tens of thousands of angry Palestinians calling for revenge marched in the funeral of Ismail Abu Shanab, a US-educated Hamas leader who was assassinated by an Israeli helicopter missile strike in Gaza City on Thursday. Palestinian groups called off a seven-week-old cease-fire after Israel killed Abu Shanab in an attack that followed a Hamas bombing — a relapse into tit-for-tat bloodshed that doomed previous peacemaking efforts.
“We love martyrdom and we seek martyrdom,” Abdelaziz Al-Rantissi, another senior Hamas political leader who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in June, told the crowd as it chanted, “Revenge, revenge!”
Israel threatened more attacks on Palestinians. “This is only the beginning,” a senior Israeli security source said. “We plan serious retaliation,” he added.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President George W. Bush’s main focus was on restoring Israeli-Palestinian dialogue broken off after the Abu Shanab killing.
Asked if Washington was going to urge restraint, he said: “We have always said that Israel has the right to defend itself but we have also always pointed out that the parties, including Israel, need to keep in mind the consequences of the actions they take...the effect of those actions on the peace process.”
Bush also announced a freeze on the assets of six Hamas leaders and five groups accused of supporting the group and ordered the Treasury Department to act.
