Word: rantisi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...there had been no significant retaliation from Hamas after the assassinations of its leaders Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi. And some Israelis were beginning to wonder aloud if maybe, perhaps, there had been a "positive change" in Israel's war on terrorism, as Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert cautiously told me. "It has been very difficult for Hamas to respond because the security measures we take are very effective," he explained...
Israel's assassination of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Hamas' leader in Gaza, has thrown the 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...
...gutted car, others covering their palms in the blood that had pooled inside. Muhammed Barakeh, a left-wing Arab member of the Israeli Assembly, charged that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had ordered the strike to bolster his standing with rightist supporters. But an Israeli military spokesman countered that Rantisi had been "directly responsible for the deaths of scores of Israelis." The assassination came just hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and an Israeli guard at a Gaza border crossing. Hamas was one of two groups that claimed responsibility...
...continuation of Israel's stated policy of targeting Hamas leaders. It killed the group's founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in March, drawing worldwide condemnation and even U.S. disapproval. "We are all waiting for the last day of our life," Rantisi said then. "If it is by an Apache [helicopter] or by cardiac arrest, I prefer that it will be by Apache." Indeed, Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence service, had long tracked Rantisi--he survived a rocket attack last year--and Saturday night, when he drove on a Gaza street without the usual buffering entourage of civilians...
...Rantisi strike is certain to intensify Palestinian fury against Israel and the U.S. "The assassination was the outcome of the Bush-Sharon meeting," said Abdullah Shami, a leader of Islamic Jihad. A Palestinian official in Gaza said protesters were calling for retaliation against "American interests." U.S. officials take a different view. They insist Arab leaders had prior warning of the pact. "The rest of the [peace] process is going nowhere fast," notes a senior State Department official. "This is something real--moving people, tanks and troops." Perhaps, but just days after the deal was made came the bloody reminder that...