MIDDLE EAST: Israeli helicopter gunships yesterday fired missiles at a leading Hamas figure, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, in the Gaza Strip, wounding him and killing three other people, writes Peter Hirschberg from Tel Aviv.
The attack weakened the hand of the Palestinian prime minister and raised questions about Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's commitment to the road map peace plan.
Several hours later, Israeli tanks and helicopters operating near the Jabalya refugee camp in the Strip, killed three Palestinians and wounded 30, after militants fired rudimentary rockets from Gaza into an Israeli town in response to the assassination attempt.
The army said three militants had been killed after helicopters targeted a car carrying the men who had fired the rockets.
At the Shifa Hospital, where Mr Rantissi was taken, thousands of Hamas supporters filled the courtyard. "Abu Mazen, we want resistance," they chanted, referring to the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, who has called on the armed militias to forego violence.
One of Mr Rantissi's bodyguards, as well as two bystanders, one of them a three-year-old girl, were killed in the strike, and 22 other bystanders injured.
Israeli military officials confirmed the attempt to assassinate Mr Rantissi, citing his close links with the movement's military wing. Sources in Mr Sharon's office said Mr Rantissi, a senior aide to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was involved in planning major attacks that would have threatened the entire diplomatic process.
Seven Israelis, including five soldiers, have been killed in shooting attacks since the Aqaba summit last Wednesday.
While Mr Sharon described the attack as part of Israeli's fight against terror, a senior member of the opposition Labour Party, Mr Matan Vilnai, said he had "nothing good" to say about Mr Rantissi, but that targeting him was not a smart move "if we want to give the process started in Aqaba a chance . . . We have strengthened Hamas instead of harming it".
Palestinian leaders accused Israel of trying to torpedo the road map, and an angry Mr Abbas, who is under pressure at home for adopting what many Palestinians view as an overly conciliatory stance toward Israel, called the strike a "terrorist attack".
The attempted hit comes as Mr Abbas is trying to convince Hamas and other militant groups to cease attacks on Israelis. Last Friday, Mr Rantissi announced that Hamas was breaking off ceasefire talks with the Palestinian prime minister over his failure to mention key Palestinian demands in his Aqaba speech.
On Monday, however, Hamas released a leaflet intimating it was considering renewing truce talks. But yesterday's attack will have badly undermined Mr Abbas's efforts to re-engage Hamas, and is a blow to the moderate line he has been peddling.
The attack drew threats of revenge from Hamas leaders. Talking from his hospital bed, Mr Rantissi, who referred to Mr Sharon as a "pig", vowed there would be "no security for the invaders of Palestine". Hinting that Hamas might try to strike at Israeli leaders, another Hamas official, Mr Mahmoud Zahar, called for "an eye for an eye . . . a politician for a politician".
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, some Israeli commentators suggested the strike was likely co-ordinated with the United States, or that Israeli leaders believed it would be met with quiet understanding in Washington.
If the latter is correct, then Mr Sharon misread President Bush, who made it clear, through a spokesman, that he was "deeply troubled" by the strike - the first public American rebuke of Israel in a long time.
Mr Sharon appeared to be engaging in a Jekyll-and-Hyde act yesterday, pushing ahead with the dismantling of illegal outposts in the West Bank, as stipulated in the first phase of the road map. The army removed 10 uninhabited outposts overnight on Monday, and was planning to remove five more, four of them populated.
Settler leaders have promised to prevent the evacuation of the outposts, but have said they will not violently resist soldiers who have been ordered to dismantle them.