December 19, 2007	Wednesday	Zilhaj 8, 1428

GAZA CITY, Dec 18: Israel killed the head of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing in Gaza and 12 other gunmen in a wave of raids on Tuesday.

Majed al-Harazin, the 38-year-old chief of the Al Quds Brigades, was driving a car in northern Gaza City when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane hit the vehicle, killing him and one of his aides, medics and the group.

He became the most senior Palestinian leader that Israel 1had killed in months.

The operation was hailed inside Israel as an effective response to near daily rocket and mortar fire from Gaza, while Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge it with scores of suicide attacks.

The raid targeting Harazin was the first of four Israel has carried out in Gaza in less than 24 hours, killing 12 militants, all but one of them from Islamic Jihad.

A commando operation in the occupied West Bank also left an Islamic Jihad gunman dead.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that Harazin had been specifically targeted, saying he was suspected of “supervising commandos responsible for firing rockets at southern Israel.”

In the second of the series of air strikes that began overnight, four Jihad militants were killed in southern Gaza, with an army spokeswoman saying the men “were preparing to fire rockets into southern Israel.”

A third air strike killed three militants in a car near the northern town of Beit Lahiya, while two Hamas gunmen were killed in a later air strike near the southern town of Rafah, medics said.

In the occupied West Bank, a local commander of the Al Quds Brigades was killed by Israeli commandos as he drove in a car in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, medics said.

After Harazin’s death was announced, militants filed into Gaza streets, firing automatic weapons into the air as loudspeakers throughout the city bemoaned his death.

More than 10,000 people attended his funeral in Gaza City, crying “Vengeance!” and calling on Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to stop revived negotiations with Israel.

They also promised a “veritable earthquake” in response to the killing.

“We vow that the assassination will unleash a wave of martyr operations,” Jihad said in a statement, referring to suicide attacks.

“All appropriate means will be used to hit the enemy in Gaza, in the West Bank and inside the 1948 borders,” group spokesman Abu Ahmed said.—AFP