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Gaza hamas killed { July 23 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/international/middleeast/23GAZA.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/international/middleeast/23GAZA.html
July 23, 2002
Israeli Strike in Gaza Kills a Hamas Leader and 14 Others
By JAMES BENNET
JERUSALEM, Tuesday, July 23 — An Israeli warplane fired a missile early this morning into the Gaza City home of a top leader of the violent group Hamas, killing at least 15 people, including several children, Hamas and hospital officials in Gaza said. Officials said more than 140 people were wounded in the attack.
After initial conflicting reports about the fate of the militant leader, Sheik Salah Shehada, a founder of the military wing of Hamas and one of Israel's most wanted men, his death was confirmed on Tuesday. Ishmail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas official, said that the sheik was dead and his brigades had confirmed his death in a statement issued in Gaza City.
The Israeli strike, against a three-story house in a densely populated warren of cinder-block homes, came as Arab leaders were reported to be pressuring Hamas to refrain from suicide strikes against Israelis.
Previous killings by Israel of leaders of Hamas have preceded spikes in the violence here. Israel maintains that such targeted killings, which Palestinians call assassinations, are essential to its self-defense.
Hamas vowed retaliation today.
"There is nothing in our hands but to respond with whatever power we have," said Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar, a political leader of Hamas, who went to Shifa Hospital to identify the dead. "Every Israeli is a target now. No one will stop us from defending ourselves." Speaking by telephone, Dr. Zahar said he had seen the body parts of several children.
In a predawn chaos of emergency vehicles and spontaneous demonstrations for Hamas and against Israel, reports conflicted as well about the number and ages of the dead. But the manager of the emergency room at Shifa Hospital, Moawia Haasanin, said 7 of the 15 people killed were children.
In all, he said, 140 people were wounded in the strike, which came just after midnight.
The Israeli action also came shortly after the Bush administration praised Israel for taking steps it considered conciliatory, including permitting a leading Palestinian moderate, Sari Nusseibeh, to reopen his office here.
Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, said on Monday that Israel was willing to withdraw from some Palestinian cities if Palestinian forces would ensure Israeli security. Other Israeli officials called a withdrawal highly unlikely.
Palestinian television early today showed people digging through rubble at the scene of the missile strike, near the Jabaliya refugee camp. Witnesses described body parts strewn in the street near the remains of Sheik Shehada's house, the missile's target.
"I didn't know where to go, what to do to save myself or my children," one man who was wounded in the attack told Palestinian television from his hospital bed.
Arab satellite networks provided live coverage of the aftermath of the attack.
Gunfire erupted in the darkened streets of Gaza City today, as mosque loudspeakers announced the missile strike. The spontaneous demonstration turned celebratory as initial reports that the sheik had survived spread.
Thousands of Palestinians marched through the streets at 3 a.m. today, calling for jihad, playing music and praising the Hamas leader.
The child of Palestinian refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Sheik Shehada, 49, was born and raised in Gaza, where he was employed at one point as a social worker and was arrested at least twice by Israel.
He married in 1976 and has six daughters. His wife and three of his daughters were initially reported killed this morning, but hospital officials later said they had survived.
Israeli security officials said Sheik Shehada's influence reached from the Gaza Strip into the West Bank and extended even abroad. They held him responsible for masterminding hundreds of attacks in Gaza, including one on a settlement in March that left five yeshiva students dead. They said he led the effort to improve the Hamas arsenal, including the development of new, short-range rockets.
Israeli officials said they had repeatedly requested that Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority arrest Sheik Shehada, with no result.
In a statement, the Palestinian Authority condemned the attack by what it labeled "this Nazi army." The authority called for a return to negotiations, an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian-controlled territory and a halt to "these criminal military attacks against our unarmed people."
The Israeli Army had no immediate response to reports that seven children died in the attack.
On June 24, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said the army was preparing "massive activity against Hamas in the Gaza Strip," after Israeli helicopter gunships killed six people in Gaza, including two men described as leaders of Hamas.
But since then, Israel has focused its military operation on the West Bank, where it has taken control of seven of the eight major cities and towns.
The Gaza Strip is surrounded by a fence, and the Hamas organization within Gaza has been largely frustrated in its attempts to strike beyond it, Israeli intelligence agents say.
Israel has frequently used helicopter gunships to track down and kill wanted men. It is known to have used warplanes on at least one other occasion. On May 18, 2001, Israel used warplanes to fire missiles at a Palestinian prison in Nablus after a suicide bomber killed at least five Israelis at a shopping mall in Netanya.
The strike in Nablus killed 11 Palestinian policemen, Palestinian officials said, but it missed its apparent target, Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, who was then the leader of the Hamas military wing in the West Bank. Mr. Abu Hanoud was later killed, on Nov. 23, by helicopter gunships, and Hamas attributed several of its subsequent attacks to vengeance for his death.
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