Israeli air strike kills Gaza security chief

GAZA - A senior Palestinian security official in the Hamas government was killed on Thursday in an Israeli aerial attack on a militant camp in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses and medics said.

They said Jamal Abu Samhadana, also a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militant group, was among four people killed in a PRC-run camp near the town of Khan Younis.

It was the first time Israel has killed an appointee of the government under Hamas, an Islamist group that took power in March after an election victory over the more moderate Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Israel knows that Abu Samhadana works in the government and by killing him they are sending a message that all its members, from the prime minister to junior employees, are targets for death," said cabinet secretary Ghazi Hamad.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the strike, saying it targeted the camp rather than anyone specific. Abu Samhadana, on Israel's wanted list for his role in a more than 5-year-old Palestinian revolt, had survived previous attempts on his life.

Hamas appointed Abu Samhadana as supervisor over the Interior Ministry, which oversees security services, in April. Though he hails from Fatah, Abu Samhadana had good relations with Hamas, which is sworn to the Jewish state's destruction.

The appointment angered Abbas, who has been trying to salvage peacemaking with Israel and lift a Western aid blockade imposed on the Palestinian Authority since Hamas took it over.

The PRC is a coalition of Palestinian militant groups. Since Israel quit Gaza last year after 38 years of occupation, the PRC has played a leading role in cross-border rocket launches.

The PRC was also suspected of being behind the bombing of a US diplomatic convoy in Gaza in 2003 in which three Americans were killed. The PRC denied involvement.

Abu Samhadan's group vowed to avenge his death.

"The Zionist entity and Zionist settlements near Gaza will not feel security and safety any more. Our rockets will rain into the Zionist entity and our heroes will blow themselves up among their dirty bodies," said a spokesman for the group.

As word of Abu Samhadana's death spread, thousands of grieving Palestinians from his hometown of Rafah, in southern Gaza, mobbed the hospital where his body was being held. Many of the mourners wept and fainted, witnesses said.

- REUTERS