.On eve of his death, Hamas leader in Gaza predicted victory
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.
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."
BreitBart
Hamas is facing the same tactical defeat that Hisbollah faced in the last war. As all can see today Hisbollah is impotent to do anything to help Hamas. Hisbollah became a state actor, and so had to give up their only weapon, asymmetric military tactics. Those don't work to good for a state, only gorilla fighters. Once they transform to a state proper they lose that advantage and are just another target rich state.
"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.
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."
BreitBart
Hamas is facing the same tactical defeat that Hisbollah faced in the last war. As all can see today Hisbollah is impotent to do anything to help Hamas. Hisbollah became a state actor, and so had to give up their only weapon, asymmetric military tactics. Those don't work to good for a state, only gorilla fighters. Once they transform to a state proper they lose that advantage and are just another target rich state.
posted by madtom at 8:29 PM
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