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Israel Assassinates Abu Shanab, Hamas Ends Truce
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Abu Shanab
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Additional
Reporting By Yasser el-Bana, IOL Correspondent
GAZA
CITY, August 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Israel
assassinated senior Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab on
Thursday, August 21, drawing the group’s declaration of ending the
truce proclaimed by the main Palestinian groups on June 29.
Abu
Shanab and two of his bodyguards were killed in an Israeli air strike on
his car in central Gaza City, the group and eyewitnesses said.
The
three died when an Israel F-16 swooped down on the city and fired a
volley of rockets at Abu Shanab's station wagon, the office of Hamas
spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin said according to Agence
France-Presse (AFP)
Medical
sources said 14 people were wounded, four of them seriously, in the air
raid, which came after the Israeli government announced it would launch
military reprisals after a bomb
blast in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday, August 19.
Hamas
claimed responsibility for the blast in response to Israeli escalation
of attacks against Palestinian-ruled areas and continued assassination
and detention campaigns against Palestinian activists.
Israeli
troops had earlier launched a rocket
attack on a house in the southern West Bank city of Al-Khalil,
killing Mohamed Al-Sedr, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad, triggering
vows of revenge from the resistance group.
Israeli
forces killed two Palestinians earlier on Thursday in fresh incursions
into the West Bank cities of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem. They also
injured six people and abducted several Palestinian activists during the
incursions.
End
Of Truce
In
quick reaction to the assassination of Abu Shanab, Hamas officially
declared an end to its ceasefire with Israel following the deadly
Israeli attack on one of its senior political leaders, Ismail Haniyeh, senior Hamas official,
said.
"The
assassination of Abu Shanab is also the assassination of the
ceasefire," Haniyeh said after the
death of Abu Shanab.
Speaking
to IslamOnline.net, Haniyeh said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon cherish the illusion that by killing Hamas leaders he would put
an end to the Palestinian resistance.
"It
is a new life for Hamas and for the Intifada and the resistance,"
he said, adding that days would prove that assassinating Hamas leaders
"would pump new blood into the Palestinian people."
Haniyeh
also demanded Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmmoud Abbas to step down if
he insisted on eschew resistance.
"Abu
Mazen (Abbas's nom de guerre) should, if he pursued this approach, leave
his post and distance himself from the resistance," he said.
Abu
Shanab was born in Gaza city in 1950. He received his bachelor degree in
civil engineering from the Egyptian Al-Mansoura University and master
degree from a U.S. university. Before his death, he was a lecturer in
the Gaza-based Islamic University.
Click
Here To Watch the aftermath of the raids
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