GAZA CITY, 7 September 2003 — Israel yesterday attempted to wipe out top Hamas leaders as they assembled for a meeting here. Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was wounded along with 15 other people in an airstrike on a house in the teeming Gaza City.
The bomb hit a third-floor apartment in a building belonging to well-known Hamas activist Marwan Abu Rass. Yassin and senior Hamas official Ismail Haniya were in the building at the time to visit Abu Rass.
Hamas officials said Yassin was injured in the hand. Bodyguards carried him out of the building, and he was driven away in a car. Yassin, the founder of the resistance group, is a quadriplegic.
Members of Hamas’ military wing threatened to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in revenge. “Sharon, your head is now wanted,” militants shouted over loudspeakers at Shifa Hospital, where Yassin was treated.
Yassin’s brother, Bader Yassin, said the European Union’s decision yesterday to denounce Hamas’ political wing as a terrorist organization had “encouraged the Israelis” to attack the Hamas leaders.
Another Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who himself escaped an Israeli strike in June with minor injuries, promised revenge. “Israel opened the door of Hell by targeting Sheikh Yassin. Our retaliation is coming soon,” Rantisi said.
After the strike, a large crowd rushed to the building. The bomb tore a large hole into the ceiling of the apartment.
A neighbor, Nasser Zaide, ran to his balcony after the explosion rocked the street and watched Yassin being rushed from the house. He said the strike destroyed the building’s third floor.
Rescue workers searched through the rubble. Hospital officials said 16 people were wounded, among them children.
A grocer, Raouf Abu Khaled, 52, helped carry the wounded to ambulances.
“I was sitting outside my shop when I saw the jeep of the sheikh coming from the side of the street and five minutes later there was a huge explosion. I saw the F-16 jet leaving the area.”
Yassin is the highest-ranking Hamas official to be targeted by Israel, which has killed 12 members of the group in seven helicopter missile strikes in the past three weeks. Five bystanders have also been killed in these attacks.
Israel’s military has up-to-the-minute intelligence on the movement of Palestinian activists, allowing them to launch quick strikes on leaders, often with helicopter gunships and F-16 fighter jets. Yassin’s recognizable brown four-wheel drive Land Rover, driven by his son, was parked outside the house, witnesses said.
Jordan denounced the assassination attempt. Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher said the attack was “a real threat to the peace process and unacceptable whatever its motives.” Moasher also criticized Israel for its series of attacks against Hamas leaders, saying they were “aimed at aborting international efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East.”
A statement from Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned from his post as Palestinian prime minister earlier in the day, “warned the Israeli government from taking advantage of the current political crisis and the Palestinian government’s resignation to escalate its aggression.”
“This Israeli attack against the leadership of Hamas reaffirms Israel’s unwillingness to take the path of peace. Such criminal actions will only take us back to the vicious cycle of violence and exacerbate the current crisis,” it said.
The Palestinian leadership for its part condemned the “heinous crime against Sheikh Yassin and his colleagues.
