At least 175 Palestinians were hurt in the overnight missile attack by an Israeli F-16 fighter jet that killed Salah Shehada at his home in a housing block of Gaza’s residential Daraj district.
Shehada, head of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades, was killed a day after Hamas’s spiritual leader, blind Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said it would consider halting suicide attacks if Israel withdrew from occupied West Bank cities.
Israel described the missile strike as one of its most significant blows against Palestinians. But Hamas vowed revenge, raising the possibility of another welter of bloodshed and endangering a fragile new dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian moderates.
The Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades have killed dozens of Israelis in suicide attacks since a Palestinian uprising began 22 months ago.
Officials at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said 15 people were killed — Shehada, his wife, a daughter and his deputy commander as well as nine children apparently from neighbouring homes demolished by the missile.
The youngest of the dead was aged two months and 15 of the wounded were in serious condition, doctors said.
Inside a local morgue, medical workers identified lumps of flesh retrieved from the wreckage of Shehada’s home.
Locals said there was no forewarning, not even the sound of a plane before the missile attack, which left the neighbourhood a spectacle of devastation.
Dazed residents stumbled through dust and debris, looking for loved ones as ambulance sirens wailed. Children were rushed away on stretchers in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
Residents and rescue teams continued to comb the wreckage on Tuesday morning for people who might still be trapped in the wreckage of the apartments, built with hollowed cement blocks.
“This is a crime. No normal-minded, conscientious and feeling person could imagine such a massacre,” Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told reporters at his West Bank compound, ringed by Israeli troops.
“I ask the whole world how they can stand silent and not stop these crimes, particularly now that we have started positive initiatives for progress — especially after the last meeting between the Palestinian delegation and the Israeli delegation headed by (Foreign Minister) Shimon Peres.”
Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat told the BBC: “This is Sharon’s effort to torpedo any effort to revive the peace process.”
In a statement confirming and defending the air raid, the Israeli army said: “Shehada was behind hundreds of terrorist attacks carried out over the past two years against the Israeli military and Israeli civilians in Israel.”
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described the air strike as a “great success”.
Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, a senior Hamas official, vowed reprisals. “Hamas’s retaliation will come very soon, and there won’t be only just one (attack)...After this crime, even Israelis in their homes will be the target of our operations.”
CONDEMNATION: The savage attack was universally condemned by world leaders, including US President George W. Bush.
Bush, Israel’s staunchest ally, “believes that this heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace”, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. —Reuters\AFP