Archive for the ‘Ahmed Aboul Gheit’ Category

Killed, Beheaded In Air Attack, Hamas Leader Who Boasted of Victory Over Israel, Family, Killed

January 1, 2009

Ever wonder where all the big shot and loudly boasing leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah the Taliban and al-Qaeda are going?  Well, many are dead or too scared to talk.

Hamas top man, believed to be one of five men at the very top of Hamas, died suddenly in his home in Gaza on January 1, 2009.  The cause of death was blunt force trauma all over his body plus beheading by weapons from an Israeli F-16.

Two of his wives and several of his children also died in the sudden epidemic.

Similar death have occurred in the tribal areas of Pakistan at the hands of U.S. Preditor drones.  And terror leaders have been dropping like flies due to sudden blunt force trauma in other areas too…

Related:
Gaza, Day 7, January 2, “Brutal Even By Middle East Standards”

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From AFP

The day before a powerful blast sent his headless body flying out of his Gaza home on Thursday, senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan predicted that the Islamist movement would defeat Israel.

“God willing, Hamas will win,” Rayan said in a vitriol-laden speech that the movement’s television broadcast just after he, his four wives and 10 of his children were killed in the Israeli blitz of the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Rayan, 51, was among the top ranked leaders in Hamas and was its most senior figure to have been killed since Israel unleashed a massive bombardment on Saturday in response to persistent rocket fire from the enclave.

Israeli F-16 jets fired two missiles at Rayan’s five-storey house in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The powerful explosion hurled his decapitated body out into the street, according to witnesses.

“It was like an earthquake,” a neighbour said of the massive blast.

A dozen neighbouring houses were destroyed or damaged in the blast which also killed 17 neighbours and brought to 420 the death toll since “Operation Cast Lead” started.

The Israeli air force said the secondary blasts demonstrated the house was used for weapons storage, and claimed it was also a communication centre. “In addition, a tunnel was located under the house and was used for the escape of terror operatives,” it said.

In the minutes following the strike, dozens of people rushed to the scene, pulling bodies from the rubble including those of the two girls, aged seven and 10.

A neighbour, Mohammed Al-Madhun, 75 watched flames emerging from his building but refused to leave.

“I want to die like Sheikh Nizar,” he said, using the bearded Hamas commander’s honorary title.

Rayan was a hardliner within the Islamist movement.

From AFP

A few months after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, Rayan vowed at a Gaza City rally that the Islamists would also seize control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank which is administered by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

A skilled orator, he was known for his vitriolic attacks against both Israel and the Western-backed Abbas he claimed colluded with the “Zionist enemy.”

In his latest speech delivered on the eve of his death and broadcast by Al-Aqsa TV on Thursday, Rayan insisted Hamas would never cave in.

With tanks massed just outside Gaza and Israel threatening a ground offensive, he defiantly declared: “We will know how to kill and capture soldiers and how to rout them.”

Isreal Claims Progress, Says Gaza Attacks “Achieved Changes” But Escalates Campaign

January 1, 2009

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday the Gaza attacks had “achieved changes” and Egypt’s foreign minister,  Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said  that Israel must immediately halt its offensive, but he insisted Hamas must commit to enforcing a halt to its  rockets also.
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“We expect the Palestinian side to say that if a cease-fire is announced, we’ll stop firing rockets,” Aboul Gheit said.

Also today, Israel’s air bombardment killed Nizar Rayyan, a key Hamas leader.

Nizar Rayyan, the most senior Hamas figure to be killed since 2004, had urged suicide attacks against Israel.

He was ranked among Hamas’ top five decision-makers in Gaza.

Medical staff said seven people were killed in the airstrike on Rayyan’s house Thursday, including at least two of Nizar Rayyan’s four wives and several of his children.

“We are trying to hit everybody who is a leader of the organization, and today we hit one of their leaders,” Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said in a television interview.

After hearing news of the death of Nizar Rayyan, Hamas militants said they would “fight to the last breath.”  Rocket attacks into Israel continued today.

A Palestinian firefighter shouts at the scene of an Israeli ... 
A Palestinian firefighter shouts at the scene of an Israeli air strike on the home of senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan in Gaza January 1, 2009. Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air attack on his home on Thursday, striking its first deadly blow against the top ranks of the Islamist group in a Gaza offensive that has claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (GAZA)

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday in Paris, France, that Israel was making progress in the Gaza attacks and had “achieved changes.”
“What we are doing now is changing the equation, making it a better reality to our citizens, stopping the rockets on Israel,” Livni said after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“And I think that even now, after a few days of operation, we achieved changes,” she said without elaborating.

As the day ended and Israel moved towar January 2, 2009, no cease fire seemed on the day’s agenda and no ground attack had commenced….

The Associated Press had this to report:
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Throughout the day, huge blasts had rocked cities and towns across Gaza as Israeli warplanes went after Gaza’s parliament building, militant field operatives, police and cars. The military said aircraft also bombed smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, part of an ongoing attempt to cut off Hamas’ last lifeline to the world outside the embattled Palestinian territory.

So far, the campaign to crush rocket fire on southern Israel has been conducted largely from the air. But military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said preparations for a ground operation were complete.

“The infantry, the artillery and other forces are ready. They’re around the Gaza Strip, waiting for any calls to go inside,” Leibovich said.

Related:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/mea
st/01/01/israel.gaza/index.html#cnnSTCText

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/me
ast/01/01/israel.gaza/index.html

 Hamas Vows “Fight to Last Breath” And For Key Leader, 400 Others, They Get It

Gaza: Israel Preparing for Endgame?

Gaza Day 6, January 1, 2009

AP:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200901
01/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians