TEL AVIV — Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi died last night shortly after an Israeli air force helicopter fired two missiles into his car in Gaza City.
The assassination of the Palestinian firebrand marks the second time in less than a month that the Islamic militant group lost its chief to Israeli military fire. Two of his bodyguards also were killed in the attack.
“Israel will regret this. Revenge is on the way,” Hamas spokesman Ismail Haniyeh said, according to the Web site of the Ha’aretz newspaper. “The death of Rantisi wasn’t in vain. Our fate as members of Hamas and Palestinians are to die as martyrs.”
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called it a “brutal assassination” even as Israel’s vice prime minister, Ehud Olmert, warned there would be more such attacks.
Just last month, Mr. Rantisi, 56, was named to succeed Hamas co-founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin after he died in an Israeli missile attack outside a Gaza mosque.
An Israeli border police officer was killed and three other Israelis were injured a few hours before the attack on Mr. Rantisi when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated an explosive at the Erez checkpoint on the northern border of the Gaza Strip.
In rare finger-pointing at the United States, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said the Bush administration was complicit in the assassination because of its support of Israel.
The flare-up comes just days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited Washington and received President Bush’s approval for a unilateral withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip.
Israel has pursued Hamas’ top leaders in a campaign of targeted killings meant to deny the militants’ claims of victory amid the pullout. Mr. Rantisi had been targeted in a similar attack in June.
The white Subaru carrying Mr. Rantisi, one of the most popular Palestinian leaders, was hit by two missiles while traveling on a central street a block from his house in the Sheik Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City.
The Hamas leader was brought to Shifra Hospital with critical wounds all over his body and head. He died five minutes after arriving, the Associated Press reported.
Two guards, Akram Nassar, 35, and Ahmad Jhura, 32, also were killed, and five pedestrians were wounded.
Enraged Palestinians surrounded the charred car, calling for revenge. Less than an hour after the attack, thousands of Gazans were in the streets to show solidarity with the slain militant leader.
One man stuck his hands into the car, stained them with blood and waved them in the air, the AP reported.
The killing ratchets up pressure for retaliation because Hamas militants so far have failed to take revenge for the killing of Sheik Yassin.
In Washington, the White House declined to criticize Israel for the assassination, saying that Israel “has the right to defend itself from terrorist attacks” and urging restraint in the region.
“The United States is gravely concerned for regional peace and stability,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “The United States strongly urges Israel to consider carefully the consequences of its actions, and we again urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint at this time.”
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw condemned Israel’s policy of targeted killings as “unlawful, unjustified and counterproductive.” In Cairo, Hossam Zaki, spokesman for the Arab League, called the assassination “a criminal act” that puts an end to all peace efforts.
Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, and Mr. Rantisi used uncompromising rhetoric in the group’s fight against the Jewish state, making him an oft-quoted figure in the international media.
Palestinians considered Mr. Rantisi, a pediatrician by training, to be the chief of Hamas’ political leadership. Israel, however, has long argued there is no distinction among Hamas leaders.
“We will take all measures to defend ourselves and to strike with impunity against terrorist leaders,” Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin said in a television interview.
Israeli security sources said Mr. Rantisi was planning a large attack to solidify his position in Hamas, the AP reported. Israeli security forces now will be put on high alert for attacks avenging his death.
Hamas is responsible for most of the 112 suicide bombings that have killed 465 persons on the Israeli side during 3 years of violence.
Some politicians on the Israeli right accused Mr. Sharon of ordering the assassination to persuade members of his Likud Party to vote in favor of the Gaza pullout in a referendum next month. The referendum campaign began this weekend amid speculation that Mr. Sharon might be forced to resign if he loses the vote.
The assassination of the newly picked Hamas chief leaves a vacuum in the organization’s Gaza-based leadership.
Khaled Mashaal, based in Syria, leads Hamas operations outside the occupied territories. Mr. Haniyeh, a former top aide to Sheik Yassin, and Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas spokesman, are considered candidates to succeed Mr. Rantisi in Gaza. Both are members of Hamas’ decision-making political bureau.
Ghazi Hamad, an associate of Mr. Rantisi and editor of a newspaper sympathetic to Hamas, said the militant group faces a “big crisis.” He suggested that the identity of the new leader might be kept secret to insulate him from Israeli attacks.
“Hamas will be more and more secretive,” he predicted.
Mr. Rantisi survived a similar missile strike by three Israeli helicopters June 10, escaping with moderate wounds. Two Palestinian bystanders were killed. In a retaliatory attack the next day, 16 Israelis were killed in a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
In recent months, the Hamas leader had gone into hiding, living in a secret apartment, abandoning his mobile phone and limiting meetings. An Israeli official said he could not be hit for many days because he had surrounded himself with children.
Mr. Rantisi was chosen as Hamas’ leader in Gaza just a few days after the March 22 assassination of Sheik Yassin. He said he knew he was a marked man, but preferred death at the hands of Israelis rather than death from natural causes.
“We will all die one day,” he said. “Nothing will change. If by Apache [helicopter] or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache.”
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