ISRAEL: Israeli officials said yesterday they had given the Palestinian Authority 24 hours to start arresting the leaders of Hamas and other extremist groups, following Thursday's killing by Israel of the senior Hamas official Ismail Abu Shanab, writes David Horovitz in Jerusalem
If the PA took no such action, the officials said, Israel would start hunting down the rest of the men it accuses of direct responsibility for years of attacks on its civilians. As if to give weight to this warning, Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinian militants inside a West Bank hospital yesterday.
Meanwhile, an estimated 100,000 Palestinians, from all factions, joined Shanab's funeral procession through Gaza City, vowing to avenge his death.
The steady deterioration in the peace process yesterday came as President Bush announced a freeze on the assets of six leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and five organisations accused of financially supporting the group. Mr Bush said in a written statement that he ordered the US Treasury Department to act in the wake of Tuesday's suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem, which killed 20 people.
"By claiming responsibility for the despicable act of terror on August 19th, Hamas has reaffirmed that it is a terrorist organisation committed to violence against Israelis and to undermining progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinian people," President Bush said.
According to the Hebrew press, Israeli defence chiefs have compiled a list of those they intend to kill, including the Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and his colleague Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, whom Israel narrowly failed to kill in June.
They plan to track them down in a repeat of the Israeli revenge attacks on PLO leaders following the killings of Israeli athletes by Palestinian gunmen at the Munich Olympics 31 years ago. The operation was approved in the aftermath of the suicide bombing by Hamas of a bus in Jerusalem on Tuesday, in which 20 people were killed and more than 100 injured.
Abu Shanab was the first target, but all Hamas leaders were now "fair game," the officials said.
The Ma'ariv daily yesterday asserted that President Bush had given at least tacit approval for the Israeli action and published pictures of more than 30 of the purported top targets on a pack of cards, mirroring the deck of wanted Iraqi leaders produced by the Americans. Sheikh Yassin was the Ace of Hearts. The PA President Yasser Arafat, blamed by Israel for encouraging and financing attacks, was the Joker. The Bush Administration, while condemning Mr Arafat's regime as being compromised by terrorism, has repeatedly, albeit behind the scenes, urged Israel not to harm him.
While the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has condemned the killing of Shanab as an extra-judicial execution, the US has issued no such criticism, instead stating that Israel has the right to self-defence but should be wary of the potential consequences of its actions.
Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have largely gone underground. However, Mr Rantisi did attend the stormy funeral in Gaza yesterday of Mr Shanab, who was killed with two colleagues by missiles fired from Israeli helicopters. Asserting that he was not troubled by the Israeli threat to his life, Mr Rantisi declared that "We love martyrdom and we seek martyrdom," and that no matter how many Hamas leaders were killed, "another leadership will arise and continue the fight until victory."
Shanab's son, Hazma (19), said before the funeral began that the family was happy that his father had "become a martyr. His dream has come true. He is a hero of Palestine."
The Gaza City funeral was the largest in years. The bodies were carried shoulder high on stretchers, wrapped in green Hamas flags, with open Korans at the side. Gunmen, some masked, fired into the air, as loudspeakers broadcast calls for "Revenge, revenge" and declared that the US-backed "road map" plan for Palestinian statehood was now dead, along with the seven-week ceasefire Hamas, Islamic Jihad and most other Palestinian factions had declared in late June.
Whatever the Bush Administration's private messages to Israel, the Americans are publicly urging Israel and the Palestinian Authority to work together to thwart the extremists and to maintain a dialogue and a commitment to the road map.
"Israel has a right to defend herself, but Israel needs to take into account the effect that actions they take have on the peace process," a White House spokesman said on Thursday. "It's important for both parties to get back talking to one another."
Hours before the Israeli missile strike on Thursday, Mr Arafat had indicated some support for an ambitious bid by the PA, under Prime Minister Mr Mahmoud Abbas, to crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad by making arrests and confiscating weaponry, as required by the "road map".
In what it said was an initial response to the killing of Shanab, Hamas members fired several shells and rockets at Jewish settlements in Gaza and across the border into southern Israel.
But it is threatening that "rivers of blood" will flow in Israel.
"They think that targeting leaders will stop jihad," Mr Rantisi scoffed yesterday. "They are mistaken. All of us in Hamas from top to bottom are looking to become like Abu Shanab."