The Hindu : Hardliner to head Hamas

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 24, 2004

International

International

Hardliner to head Hamas

GAZA CITY (GAZA STRIP), MARCH 23. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a hardliner who rejects all compromise with Israel, was today chosen to be the new leader of Hamas following Israel's assassination of the militant group's founder.

Dr. Rantisi said he emerged from secret elections as the overall chief of Hamas and was chosen to head the group's political bureau, the main decision-making body. The bureau has been led by Khaled Mashaal, a Hamas operative based in Syria.

``We will be unified in the trenches of resistance. We will not surrender, we will never surrender to Israeli terror,'' Dr. Rantisi told The Associated Press. ``We have to strengthen the unity of the Palestinians. The continuation of resistance is going to be my goal.''

The announcement of Dr. Rantisi's election was made over loudspeaker during a gathering of tens of thousands of Hamas supporters at a soccer stadium in Gaza City, a day after Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas' founder and spiritual leader, was assassinated by Israel.

``After the assassination of the hero, the martyr, Ahmed Yassin, a secret election was held ... in which Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi was chosen as the new leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement,'' a senior Hamas official, Ismail Hanieh, told the crowd.

People in the crowd chanted Dr. Rantisi's name and he addressed them with a fiery speech, threatening to strike at Israelis ``in every street.'' ``We will continue the same policy of Sheik Ahmed Yassin. We will carry on until we achieve the goals of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, which he loved and believed in.''

However, Dr. Rantisi, a 54-year-old pediatrician, is not expected to replace Yassin or take over the group. Since its creation in 1987, Hamas has been run largely as a collective of senior activists in Gaza and the Arab world, with Yassin in a key role as ideologue, spiritual leader and strategist.

Hamas leaders said that while the killing of Yassin is a blow to morale, it would not hamper the group's operations, including its ability to carry out attacks. Hamas is pledged to Israel's destruction.

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