GAZA/ JERUSALEM: ISRAEL INCREASES SECURITY FOLLOWING ASSASSINATION OF HAMAS LEADER AL-RANTISSI

Record ID: 400726

  • Title: GAZA/ JERUSALEM: ISRAEL INCREASES SECURITY FOLLOWING ASSASSINATION OF HAMAS LEADER AL-RANTISSI
  • Date: 18th April 2004
  • Summary: (U2) JERUSALEM (APRIL 18, 2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS STACKED AT NEWSTAND 0.05 2. CLOSEUP OF HEADLINE WITH ABDEL-AZIZ AL-RANTISSI'S PICTURE 0.11 3. CLOSEUP OF JERUSALEM POST WITH PICTURE FROM BOMB SCENE 0.17 4. SLV ISRAELI SECURITY GATHERED ON CORNER 0.23 5. SLV FEMALE SECURITY OFFICER CHECKING CAR / P
  • Embargoed: 3rd May 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GAZA/JERUSALEM
  • City:
  • Country: Gaza Jerusalem
  • Reuters ID: LVA1S2RAJ9OQMC0JXAOX0QFN4RQY
  • Story Text: Israel beefs up security as Palestinians begin
    mourning Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi.



    Residents of Jerusalem woke up to headlines and news
    stories detailing Rantissi's life and death on Sunday
    (April 18), as Israeli border policemen guarded crowded
    areas.

    The helicopter missile strike on Rantissi's car in Gaza
    City on Saturday (April 17) stoked Palestinian anger
    already high over U.S. President George W. Bush's statement
    this week that Israel could retain land Palestinians want
    for a state in any peace deal.

    Hours after two missiles slammed into Rantissi's car,
    killing the bearded Egyptian-trained paediatrician and two
    of his bodyguards, Hamas's armed wing issued a statement
    vowing "100 retaliations" that will shake "the criminal
    entity".

    The Israeli government declared a high alert in response
    and sent security into the streets in full force.

    Palestinians, meanwhile, began preparing for a three-day
    mourning period in the Gaza Strip as thousands more in the
    West Bank prepared for demonstrations.

    Tens of thousands of Palestinians surged onto Gaza's
    street promising to avenge Rantissi, 56.

    He was assassinated less than a month after Hamas's
    spiritual leader and co-founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was
    killed in a similar attack from the air.

    Many Palestinians viewed Rantissi as particularly
    hard-line in a fundamentalist Islamic group that has killed
    hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings.

    Israel said it struck down a "mastermind of terrorism",
    hours after a suicide bomber blew up at the Erez border
    crossing in the northern Gaza Strip, killing an Israeli
    soldier.

    Israel killed Rantissi three days after Prime Minister
    Ariel Sharon won Bush's backing at the White House for his
    plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four isolated
    Jewish settlements in the West Bank by the end of 2005.

    Israel tried to kill Rantissi, a public face of the
    militant group that normally stays in the shadows, last
    June.

    Asked once in a television interview if he was afraid
    for his life, Rantissi said he could die of cancer or a
    heart attack as easily as from an Israeli Apache helicopter strike.




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