JERUSALEM (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Israeli occupation forces assassinated another Islamic Resistance leader Sunday, dealing a blow to Washington's drive to get Israel and the Palestinians to end a year-long conflict that threatens regional support for its anti-terror war.
Israel renewed an internationally condemned track-and-kill policy to shoot dead Abdel Rahman Hamad, a member of the Hamas group, whom it said was involved in a Resistance bombing at a Tel Aviv disco in June in which 21 people were killed.
Hamas threatened retaliation for the killing, which Palestinians branded a cold blooded murder. .
Palestinian security sources said Hamad, 35, was assassinated by Israeli occupation forces as he stood on the roof of his house in the city of Qaqilya, near Israel's border with the West Bank.
The assassination was carried out only hours before Israel was expected to announce the easing of a military blockade of Palestinian areas after citing a ``decrease'' in what it calls violence since a cease-fire was reaffirmed on September 26. (Read photo caption)
The United States and other major world players have urged a revival of Middle East peacemaking to bolster Muslim and Arab support for the anti-terror war that President Bush launched after the September 11 suicide plane attacks on New York and Washington.
``Israel will pay a very heavy price for this act,'' a senior Hamas official, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, told Reuters after Hamad was killed. ``We will definitely respond very painfully.''
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the killing ''reflects the determination of the Israeli Prime Minister (Ariel Sharon) to sabotage every effort that is being exerted'' by the Palestinians to uphold a cease-fire.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Palestinian officials called on President George W. Bush October 12, 2001 to produce deeds instead of words to back U.S. support for the creation of a Palestinian state. Bush issued his strongest endorsement so far of a Palestinian state during an October 11 news conference. An Israeli tank refuels at a checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron October 11, 2001. Israeli troops remained in positions in Palestinian-ruled areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Hebron, raids condemned by the Palestinians as a violation of the cease-fire deal. (Nayef Hashlamoun/Reuters)