Israel tries to kill senior Hamas leader

10.20pm

GAZA - Israel has tried to assassinate a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, wounding Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in a helicopter attack that could spur new violence and shatter a US-backed peace plan.

Rantissi, 56, one of Hamas's best-known public faces, has taken centre stage over the past week in rejecting calls by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to cease attacks on Israelis under the terms of the "road map" peace proposal.

"Israel should expect that this crime...will not pass without a severe punishment," Mahmoud al-Zahar, a top Hamas official, told al-Jazeera television on Tuesday.

Israeli security sources confirmed that Israel had tried to assassinate Rantissi. "Israel will continue to fight terror. The policy hasn't changed, because the Palestinian Authority isn't doing it," one senior source said.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed on Sunday in Gaza in a rare joint attack by Hamas and two other Palestinian groups. All three gunmen were also killed.

There was no official Israeli comment on the missile attack in Gaza City on Rantissi's car, which witnesses said killed two people and wounded about 20, including the Hamas leader and his teenage son.

They said two helicopters fired seven missiles at the vehicle, setting it ablaze.

Doctors and Hamas sources described Rantissi's condition as "good". He was wounded in the leg.

Israel has called on Abbas to carry out Palestinian obligations under the road map to disarm and dismantle militant groups spearheading attacks against it in the 32-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.

But Abbas, who shook hands on the peace plan at a landmark summit in Jordan last week with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush, has sought a dialogue with Hamas, hoping to seal a truce and avoid civil war among the Palestinians.

Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel broke off ceasefire talks after the summit, accusing Abbas of making too many concessions to Sharon.

The assassination attempt was launched a day after Israel took initial steps on the ground to put the road map into motion by tearing down 10 Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank.

The removal of the clusters of caravans on lonely hilltops, set Sharon on a path to confrontation with settlers he had long championed. But he drew Palestinian derision.

"This is a theatrical and insignificant step," said Nabil Abu Rdainah, a top aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Speaking again after the attack on Rantissi, he said: "This shows Israel's determination to abort the road map."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell welcomed the Israeli move, which followed a pledge Sharon made at the June 4 Aqaba summit in Jordan.

"I'm pleased that Israel is now discharging the commitment it made to the international community at the Aqaba summit," Powell said in Chile.

The road map, the most far-reaching Middle East peace plan in more than two years, calls for an end to violence and reciprocal confidence-building steps leading to creation of Palestinian state by 2005.

They include the removal of settler outposts set up since March 2001, the month Sharon took office, and a freeze on construction inside established settlements.

Israel's Peace Now, a non-governmental movement which monitors settlements, says that there are about 60 outposts, none authorised by the government.

Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim said further steps by Israel would depend on Abbas and his security chief Mohammed Dahlan reining in militants.

Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war and the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law. Israel disputes this.

- REUTERS