"Revenge Will Be Like an Earthquake!" Says Hamas after Israeli Attack

10/06/2003| IslamWeb

The Israeli helicopter attack came less than a week after Bush launched the "road map" toward Middle East peace he helped craft at a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. It appeared to jeopardize the peace plan with a new wave of retribution: After the attack Tuesday, Hamas threatened revenge "that will be like an earthquake." The US president George W. Bush scolded Israel on Tuesday for a helicopter attack on a senior Hamas leader that killed two bystander (woman and her three years old daughter) and a bodyguard, warning that such a strike "does not contribute to the security of Israel." "The president is deeply troubled by the strike of Israel helicopter gunships that reportedly killed at least two persons and wounded 20 others," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. Abbas denounced the helicopter strike as a "criminal and terrorist" Israeli attack, and asked the United States to intervene. The prepared statement from Fleischer's lectern seemed to be Bush's way of trying to live up to his promise to cajole Israel and the Palestinians, and of answering Abbas's plea for American help. "What's important in this new environment is for Palestinians and Israelis to find ways to work together on the path to peace," Fleischer said. "This is going to require both the Palestinian Authority and Israel to find new ways to protect the road map so it can advance to face 'terrorism'." "In looking at the progress that must be made for the road map and looking at this attack, the president is deeply troubled by it," Fleischer said. The White House has often tempered such warnings to Israel by emphasizing that "Israel has a right to defend itself," and Fleischer repeated that language Tuesday. But, he added: "Israel has to act on that right in a manner that is consistent with larger objectives, and in this case the president views this as deeply troubling." In the attack Tuesday, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car carrying Abdul Aziz Al-Rantisi, the most high-profile political leader of the Islamic group Hamas to be targeted by Israel in 32 months of fighting. AL-Rantisi said he jumped out of his car when he heard the choppers overhead. He was injured and underwent surgery. "We will continue with our Jihad and resistance until every last criminal Zionist is evicted from this land," Al-Rantisi told the Arab TV satellite station Al-Jazeera from his hospital bed. Abbas accused Israel of trying to destroy the "road map" plan to get out of its commitments. Hamas participated Sunday in a rare joint operation with Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades to kill four Israeli soldiers at an army outpost in Gaza. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Al-Rantisi's jeep spewing flames and white smoke. (Al-Jazeera)