Islamic Jihad's most senior commander in the Gaza Strip was
killed on Wednesday by an explosion that tore through his car, the
Palestinian militant group said, blaming the Israeli army, which
denied involvement.
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian gunmen shot dead an
Israeli at a petrol station outside a Jewish settlement, the army
said.
Witnesses to the death of Abu al-Waleed al-Dahdouh, head of
Islamic Jihad's armed wing in the Gaza Strip, said his car blew up
as he opened one of its doors and that an Israeli military aircraft
was flying overhead at the time.
The Israeli army denied any involvement, saying it did not
operate in Gaza.
But Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "Whoever hears the
news knows that not a day goes by when our security forces don't
receive an order and don't act to prevent an attempted attack, to
reach the murderers by surprise before they can get an attack
rolling."
In a speech ahead of March 28 general election, Olmert vowed
Israel would not permit "a single launcher of rockets to get a
moment of rest. We will seek them out everywhere and reach them ...
without compromise or hesitation, day and night."
Describing Dahdouh's death as an assassination, Nabil Abu
Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
called for world pressure on Israel to resume peace talks.
Prospects for a resumption of negotiations have dimmed since the
Islamic militant group Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction,
heavily defeated Abbas's Fatah faction in a January 25
election.
Olmert said Israel regarded Hamas as an enemy but would pursue
even "the slightest flicker of hope" for peace.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on a visit to Vienna
that Israel didn't rule out talks with Hamas if it recognized the
Jewish state and renounced violence.
"I never say never," she told reporters.
Chants of revenge
Chanting "revenge, revenge," hundreds of Islamic Jihad gunmen
gathered outside Gaza's Shifa Hospital after hearing that Dahdouh's
body had been taken there.
"This is an Israeli assassination that killed one of our most
important commanders," said Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad
leader.
Abu Adallah, a spokesman for the group, said: "Our rockets will
rain down on (Israelis). Islamic Jihad's armed wing will not remain
silent and will respond with all its might to avenge the death of
its leader."
Separately, two Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli at
a settlement near Nablus in an attack claimed by Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, an armed group in Fatah, as revenge for a raid last week
in Nablus in which eight Palestinians died.
The head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs said stocks of wheat, sugar and cooking oil in Gaza would
begin to run out within days unless Israel reopened the strip's
main crossing point for goods.
Israeli officials defended their closure of the Karni crossing
as a security precaution and said the Palestinians had declined
their offer to reroute supplies via another crossing.
But as international pressure mounted, Israel signaled that
Karni would reopen as early as Thursday. "It is not our policy to
punish the Palestinians, not at all," Livni said.
(Chinadaily.com via agencies March 2, 2006)
