LEBANON: PALESTINIANS RALLY IN PROTEST OVER ASSASSINATION OF HAMAS LEADER AL-RANTISSI

Record ID: 215492

  • Title: LEBANON: PALESTINIANS RALLY IN PROTEST OVER ASSASSINATION OF HAMAS LEADER AL-RANTISSI
  • Date: 17th April 2004
  • Summary: (W8) BOURJ BRAJNEH REFUGEE CAMP, BEIRUT, LEBANON (APRIL 17-18, 2004)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (NIGHT SCENES) 1. VARIOUS DEMONSTRATIONS 0.21 2. SLV DEMONSTRATORS CARRYING BANNERS WITH PICTURES OF AHMAD YASSIN 0.24 3. SLV BOY CARRYING PICTURE OF YASSIN 0.29 4. SLV PEOPLE MARCHING AND CHANTING 0.38 5. CLOSE OF WOMAN HO
  • Embargoed: 2nd May 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BEIRUT, SIDON AND TYRE, LEBANON
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Reuters ID: LVA11LWI3ATMCMZ31B7KG4TOKYC0
  • Story Text: Thousands rally in Palestinian refugee camps in
    Lebanon to protest Rantissi's assassination.




    Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon witnessed
    outpourings of grief and anger at the news of the
    assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi on
    Saturday (April 17).

    "This movement has become stronger with martyrdom of
    its leader and its entire leadership. The blood of Sheikh
    Ahmad Yassin will not dissipate but will we will get even
    by having Sharon's head," said Abu Ahmad Fadl, Hamas'
    representative in the south Lebanon refugee camps.

    Rantissi was killed by a missile strike on his car in
    the Gaza Strip, the powerbase of the Palestinian Islamic
    militant group where he had been the top official.

    Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi was already a marked man when he
    took over from his assassinated predecessor Ahmed Yassin as
    Gaza leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas less
    than a month ago.

    Rantissi, a Hamas co-founder, survived an Israeli
    attempt to kill him last June. After Israel assassinated Yassin in a
    he
    licopter missile strike outside a Gaza City
    mosque on March 22, it moved Rantissi's name to the top
    spot on its hit list.

    Israeli security sources said four drones had been
    continuously patrolling the skies of Gaza over the past two
    weeks on the lookout for Rantissi, before he was spotted
    and killed on Saturday.

    An Egyptian-trained paediatrician, Rantissi, 55, had
    long depicted himself as a Hamas politician with no links
    to the military wing. Israel has refused to accept the
    distinction, accusing him of being a top decision-maker on
    attacks.

    Filling the role of Hamas spokesman, he issued vows of
    revenge, often in calm even tones from his modestly
    furnished Gaza home, for Israel's killing of militants.

    "We will fight them until the liberation of Palestine,
    the whole of Palestine," he told thousands of Hamas
    supporters after Yassin was killed.

    Israeli leaders vowed after Yassin's death to continue
    to target senior militants.

    A devout Muslim and father of six, Rantissi has been
    known to interrupt interviews for his five-times daily
    prayers. But his Western-style suits and nearly fluent
    English have also made him media-friendly enough to command
    air time on CNN and BBC.

    Rantissi's hardline approach has won him many admirers
    among a Palestinian younger generation increasingly
    radicalised amid Israel's crackdown in the West Bank and
    Gaza Strip.

    Born near what is now Israel's coastal city of
    Ashkelon, Rantissi was taken as an infant to the Gaza Strip
    by his family, one of thousands of Arabs displaced during
    the war that led to the creation of the Jewish state in
    1948.

    He grew up in the Khan Younis refugee camp and received
    his medical training in Egypt. Returning to Gaza, he helped
    found Hamas in 1987. The group is dedicated to destroying
    Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state.

    He was jailed on and off for years by Israel for his
    role in a first uprising, or Intifada, that began in 1987.

    Rantissi was among 415 men associated with Hamas and
    Islamic Jihad expelled to southern Lebanon in 1992 after a
    wave of attacks on Israelis. He gained prominence as
    spokesman for the deportees, who were allowed to return
    after Israel came under international pressure.

    Rantissi later spent time in Palestinian Authority
    jails for speaking out against peacemaking with Israel.

    Since the start of the latest uprising, he has played a
    major role in building Hamas's support, often at the
    expense of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his
    mainstream Fatah faction.


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