Word: qassam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Islamic movement's chiefs into a panic. Coming less than a month after Israel eliminated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Rantisi's killing forced underground Gaza's political leaders. It also dangerously deepened fissures between the group's military and political factions. Fighters in its military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, fear that surviving political leaders are less committed than Rantisi was to attacking Israel, say senior Hamas sources in Gaza. Izzedine al-Qassam members want to strike back at Israel soon to avenge Rantisi's death and send a signal to the Bush Administration. They are outraged that Bush earlier...
...just volunteer to join al-Qassam, though. Hamas' secrecy seems to enhance its appeal. Only the so-called political wing has a public face. Everyone knew Sheik Yassin as Hamas' founder and spiritual head, the only cleric in the pantheon of Palestinian leaders. They know a few of the other out-front elite, like Rantisi, a pediatrician and Islamic ideologue who had been Hamas' No. 2; al-Zahar, a surgeon who teaches at Gaza's Islamic University and also leans toward the relative hard line; and the much lamented Abu Shanab, who reflected Hamas' more moderate side. Everyone is aware...
...magazines apiece, grab a few hand grenades or rockets and head for the fringes of one of the 20 Israeli settlements laced into the Gaza Strip. Sometimes they would hit something, often not. "We'd try to shoot settlers or the soldiers guarding the houses. Or we'd fire Qassams at them," he said, referring to the crude short-range rocket called the Qassam II that Hamas began making...
...real name, and he allowed me to use it since the Israelis already know all about him. He is a big, hulking man with supersize hands and graying hair cropped to the skull. At 32, he has been a member of Hamas for 15 years, a militant in al-Qassam for 12 and a fugitive the entire time. He has five children he sees "from time to time...
...activities for Hamas "are what give me satisfaction and peace in my heart," he said, explaining, "I work in making rockets." Salama is in charge of lengthening the range of the five-mile Qassam II rocket, using information he gleans from the Internet and technical manuals that "outside sources" smuggle into the Strip. Since Israel uncovered and smashed many of Gaza's munitions workshops last year, his cell crafts its rockets in a variety of small rooms inside civilian apartments scattered through pro-Hamas neighborhoods. Salama is eager to acquire more sophisticated technology, but one effort in that direction nearly...