Uh-Oh. Hamas leader destroyed by State of Isreal

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli helicopters fired missiles at Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin as he left a mosque near his house at daybreak Monday, residents said, and witnesses said he was killed.

Witnesses said Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at Yassin and two bodyguards as they left the mosque, killing them instantly. Hamas officials confirmed he had been killed.

Yussef Haddad, 35, a taxi driver, said he saw the missiles hit Yassin and the bodyguards.

"Their bodies were shattered," he said.

Yassin, a quadriplegic, was by far the most senior Palestinian militant killed in more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Hundreds of angry Palestinians gathered around his minutes after the attack, calling for revenge against Israel.

Ambulances and fire trucks raced to the scene with sirens wailing, and rescue workers were gathering up body parts of the shattered bodies.

Yassin founded Hamas in 1987. He was held in Israeli prisons for several years before being released in 1994.

In September 2002, Yassin escapes Israeli missile strike on Gaza building with a small wound on his hand.

END OF COPY.

This brilliant play of strategic relations with its neighbors should deter and probably will finally bring an end to violence within Israel (against all peoples).

END SARCASM.

Stupidheads

Good riddance i'd say. But shooting missiles at a quadropolegic seems a bit weak. Though i'm glad this asshole is dead, i also don't think this is particualrly constructive to the peace process...although at this point i guess Peace Facade is more appropriate.

if this is not meant to inflame, then i do not know what is.

many methods could have been used to remove this citizen. this shock and awe crap is not meant to do simple execution justice. this is blatant prodding of the bees nest.

maybe it will help bushjr out though. "fear the angry reactionary muslims." rattle the sabre, and then show the violent reactions a million times on the news. it will be good for arms sales and whatnot.

As is the continual stream of suicide bombers taking out innocent lives. If there were ever a bee's nest I would not want to prod it would be that of a really pissed off Israel.

I can guarantee you that this guy would have been seriously dissapointed if he had not died the way he did. Where is the honor and glory in dying as an old man? How can others blindly follow him into death if they don't have a reason to avenge his death?

And each would have been just as bad. Would you rather read about a Shin Bet agent putting a bullet in the head of a quadriplegic, or holding a pillow over his face until he suffocated? The result would have been the same, either way.

I guess ignoring the problem would make it go away.

Wait, no it wouldn't.

That area us screwed either way. There is no easy solution. Certain people won't rest until Isreal is destroyed, and certain people won't rest until Isreal is the supreme power of the middle east.

They could, I dunno, arrest him, maybe?

They could arrest him, but somehow I imagine he wouldn't go without a fight anyway.

I have a hard time believing the threat presented by an aged quadriplegic is great enough to warrant air strikes.

Though, it hardly matters now.

Well I'm sure a senior leader of the Hamas has able bodyguards and other protection. And apparently "hundreds" of angry Palestinians were on the scene "minutes" afterwards, which would probably also be the case if he were being arrested. And apparently he WAS arrested before and got out for some reason.

They traded him for a pair Israeli agents, I believe.
I’m still convinced that dropping bombs in some neighborhood to kill one guy, is a bad idea.

[Edited on Mar 21, 2004 by Coliwali]

You know, just because you aren't physically fit to go out and fight yourself does not make you harmless when you have power and loyal followers.

Not to make light of the situation or come off totally lame, but just to put it in terms everyone can understand - do you think the Emperor in Star Wars wasn't dangerous because he could barely walk around?

His brain was intact and functioning, and it was this guy's most dangerous asset. His disabilities do not change that, at all.

I didn't say it was a good idea. I know one person who doesn't have the answer to the Middle East problem... me.

From what I understand, he was already arrested once. He was also released. Neither prison nor release kept him from acting as a leader of Hamas. Whether he could move any of his limbs or not had nothing to do with his role in terrorist activities.

The idea of Israeli cops or commandos trying to arrest a Hamas leader is a bit ludicrous, no?

But, as you said, it hardly matters now.

And, no, I don't think dropping bombs or firing missiles in populated areas is a good idea either. I don't endorse suicide missions or other ways to senselessly waste soldiers' lives, but sometimes risks have to be taken. Perhaps Israel would not have so many vocal critics today had they continued using their best "snake-eaters" in surgical strikes/assassinations instead of turning to indiscriminate high explosives.

if you want peace in the middle east, you need to have ALL the old guards removed. i think sharon is a beast, but he is facing arafat (and yassin) who are worth as much as him ;-)

i hate all this violence, but i'm surprised some people find it "gross" to use explosives to kill "responsible" terrorists when those same terrorists send people to explose themselves in a pizza place...

now, what about sharon and arafat being send to an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and bring younger people in so they can really tackle the problems and hopefully resolve them ?

i aggree but when Isreal does that the same vocal critics say they kill people without bringing them to justice.....

jjs III

That's a really good point...it's amazing how much PR has an effect on how that particular war is fought.

Yassin played with matches and got burned. Nobody should have any complaints when a man who orders the deaths of hundreds of civilian men, women & children in shopping malls, school buses, restuarants and night clubs is taken out in a military strike. Please spare him your sympathies.

Let's hope the leaders of other terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Al Asqa "Martyrs" brigade are next.

Hang on...

Yasser Arafat is the leader of the Al Asqas.

Oh well that will make him easy to find......



[Edited on Mar 22, 2004 by UpTight]

sorry guys to go back to the beginning of the thread, but I can't help it. now, do this as an exercice: you know nothing or not much about politics and not much or nothing about the israel/palestine problems. and you read the depeche....

amazing; all you read is that the Hamas leader, paraplegic , already wonded, who served several years in israeli jails, has been killed by missiles shot by an helicopter and that the bodies were shaterred. It gives you a vision of horror, right ?
if you know nothing about politics, you can still clearly read and see who the bad guys are but you cannot read anything about who the killed leader was...

that is how easy it is to manipulate the information

That sort of argument dsiregards the fact that even the least informed Palestinian knows that the victim in question was a member of an organization involved in a conflict with Israel.

No one here has been "manipulated" into thinking "oh, poor innocent Yassin was slain without reason". Palestinians are as upset and angry as any people would be if a "popular" leader had been killed. Personally, I don't care whether he was atomized, driven into a vat of acid or forced to swallow venomous snakes, and I would wager a guess that most Palestinians don't care about his cause of death either--they care about the fact that he was iced, period.

Now, the important fact in this entire situation is that Yassin's popularity has grown to the extent that so many people would be angry about his death. It is a disturbing fact that a great part of the population of the Palestinian territories is finding common cause with groups of terrorists that COULD NOT CARE LESS how much their compatriots want peace. I believe that a very big reason for that is that large-scale munitions are killing a lot of innocent Palestinian bystanders. When a Hamas soldier is taken out, but 3-4 Palestinian Joe-Average types or their kids are iced as well, the average bystander can't HELP but not care as much when innocent Israelis meet a similar fate. THAT is the sort of mentality that leads someone to support scum like Hamas or their comrades. I believe 100% in Israel's right to defend itself and pursue terrorist groups' members, fighters, and leaders, but they have to do so with the concept of proportionality in mind. For those of you who are not aware of this military term, it's the concept of using the appropriate weapon for the target you have in your sights.

Man it is scary. THe leaders of Hamas are saying that the Israelis have opened the gates of hell. Plus they said that there going to cut Ariel Sharons head off. My feeling is that the Israelis were right in doing this but they their going to reap the whirlwinds of their actions.

wrong. if you read the original depeche, it clearly paints a situation in which, once again, very little choice if none is left for the reader to decide who is who...it should, no ?

anyway, the important news is that Sharon has reach yet another level of tension and he may have open the doors to a total war with the terrorists groups. which will able him to strike even harder because the attacks that will occur soon in israel will be terrible...yeah, something else that a terrorist group leader and his bodyguards killed by a missile....

Do you honestly believe that the average Palestinian does not know what Hamas is all about, or what it means to be part of their organization?

Yassin is not being mourned by crowds currently because he was an innocent paraplegic that was randomly detonated. He is being mourned because he was a symbol for a group that is fighting the Israelis. The method of his death--high explosives in an open area by a religious center--serves to both undermine Israeli efforts and to lesser the tragedy of Israeli civilian deaths in Palestinians' eyes.

I do not defute that the article makes little mention of Yassin's activities and origins. I do, however, disagree with the assertion that it's the only knowledge a Palestinian on the street would have about this guy.