OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 8 September 2003 — Israel yesterday said it wanted to wipe out the Islamic resistance movement Hamas and that all group leaders were “dead men.”
“We intend to liquidate all of Hamas, without any distinction between the political and military branches of this organization,” a source close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said a day after the Jewish state failed to kill three top Hamas leaders, including its founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
“Israel will strike everywhere against anyone implicated in attacks and none of the terrorists should think they are immune,” he said.
Sharon was quoted as saying by the Yediot Ahronot daily that Hamas leaders were “dead men.” “We won’t give them any rest,” he said. “We will continue to pursue them because they have only one goal: the destruction of Israel.”
Sharon’s warning came as other Israeli leaders demanded the deportation of Yasser Arafat from Palestinian territories after the resignation of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a TV interview that Washington would not negotiate with Arafat, but did not want to see him sent into exile.
Arafat told his Fatah faction in a closed-door meeting in Ramallah yesterday that he wanted parliamentary Speaker Ahmed Qorei as his next prime minister.
“President Arafat has received the agreement of all members of the Fatah Central Committee and the PLO’s Executive Committee to appoint Abu Ala (Ahmed Qorei) to the post of prime minister,” Nabil Abu Rudeinah, Arafat’s adviser, said.
Late at night, Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a home in the Khan Younis refugee camp in central Gaza.
At least nine people were injured in the attack, according to preliminary reports.
