Hamas leader killed; Friday a ‘day of wrath’

TEL AVIV | After destroying Hamas‘ smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian border during five days of bombing, Israel escalated its offensive Thursday by killing Hamas leader Nizar Rayan, his four wives and at least nine of his children.

Undeterred, Hamas proclaimed Friday a “day of wrath” by urging Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem to protest en masse after midday prayers.

“Let Friday be a day of solidarity with our people in Gaza and a day of wrath against the Zionist occupation and its settlers,” Hamas said on its Web site.

Israel said 12,000 police had been mobilized to maintain order.

“Friday is a testing ground,” police commander Yoram Ohayon told the Israeli news site Ynet.com. “Friday prayers around the country and specifically in Jerusalem can be a ground for incitement and disrupting public order.”

Even as it pursued its bombing campaign, Israel kept the way open for intense efforts by leaders in the Middle East and Europe to arrange a cease-fire. Israel said it would consider a halt to fighting if international monitors were brought in to track compliance with any truce, according to the Associated Press.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel is “not interested in conducting a long war” but insisted “we will deal with Hamas and terror with an iron fist.”

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who held talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said Israel would decide in due course when to halt its offensive. “The question of whether it’s enough or not will be the result of our assessment on a daily basis,” she said, according to an Agence France-Presse report.

Adding to the urgency of the diplomatic maneuvering, the Israeli military said its preparations for a ground assault were complete and that troops stood ready to cross the border if the air operation to stamp out Hamas rocket fire needed to be expanded.

Soldiers massed along the Gaza border said they were eager to join the fight, and some even cheered as they heard thunderous air strikes in the distance.

Six days of Israeli bombing in response to Hamas’ relentless rocket fire on Israeli towns and cities have all but sealed the coastal strip from the outside world.

Journalists have been prohibited from entering Gaza, and a not-so-secret network of smuggling tunnels on its Egyptian border are thought to have been destroyed.

Before Israel began bombing Saturday, Gazans jokingly referred to the tunnels as their “duty-free zone.”

In the final years of Israel’s on-the-ground occupation of Gaza, Israel established the so-called Philadelphia corridor to patrol the border and stop weapons smuggling, but it never managed to stop the illicit trade.

After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the number of tunnels grew exponentially. Before the start of the operation, hundreds were thought to be in operation. Hamas controlled the trade.

Story Continues →