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By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer
DAMASCUS, Syria - A car bomb killed an operative of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as he turned the ignition Sunday, and Israeli security officials acknowledged that the Jewish state was involved.
AP Photo
Sunday's killing was the first by Israel of a Hamas member on Syrian soil and came after weeks of Israeli warnings that members of the Islamic militant group would not be safe anywhere.
Police at the scene of al-Zahraa district explosion were seen retrieving pieces of the body of Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil. The car exploded outside his home at 10:45 a.m. when he tried to start it, Hamas officials said.
In Israel, the government issued no statement, but security officials acknowledged Israeli involvement in the killing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Israel blames Syria for a Hamas bus bombing that killed 16 Israelis last month, saying it is ultimately responsible for the actions of Hamas and other militant groups it gives shelter to. Khalil's killing appeared as much a warning to Syria as to other Hamas militants.
The Syrian information ministry said in a statement carried by the official news agency, SANA, that Khalil had not engaged in any activity inside Syrian territory.
Ahmad Haj Ali, an adviser to the Syrian information minister, described the killing as a "terrorist and cowardly action."
"This is not the first warning" Israel has tried to convey to Syria, Haj Ali said. "What happened indicates that Israel's aggression has no limits."
The killing, he said, "was meant to deliver a message to the entire world that says: 'We are capable of striking anywhere in accordance with the Israeli agenda.'"
Israel has killed many Hamas leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), including the group's founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, earlier this year. But Sunday's slaying was the first time a Hamas member had been killed by Israel in Syria. Israel unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Jordan in 1997.
A member of the Hamas political bureau, Mohammed Nazzal, told The Associated Press in Cairo, Egypt, that Khalil, 42, used to work for Hamas in Gaza. Israel expelled Khalil from Gaza in 1992 along with a large group of Palestinians who spent weeks in the no-man's land between Israel and Lebanon when the Lebanese government initially refused to accept the deportees to protest their expulsion.
Palestinian sources told AP in Cairo that Khalil was killed because he had been working as a liaison between the group's Gaza leaders and the political wing based in Damascus.
Hamas is one of the most active Palestinian groups opposing the interim peace accords with Israel and has been responsible for numerous suicide bombings in the Jewish state.
Sunday's Israeli action was its first inside Syria since last October, when Israeli warplanes bombed a base of Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group that stages attacks on Israelis. That air attack, the first in two decades, was retaliation for a Jihad suicide bombing at a restaurant in Haifa that killed 19 people.
In the Shajaiyeh neighborhood in Gaza, people converged on home of Khalil's family to pay their condolences.
Rafik Khalil called his brother a "martyr."
"Since he left the country, we have had no contact with him because he chose to live a secret life," Khalil said.
DAMASCUS, Syria - A car bomb killed an operative of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as he turned the ignition Sunday, and Israeli security officials acknowledged that the Jewish state was involved.
AP Photo
Sunday's killing was the first by Israel of a Hamas member on Syrian soil and came after weeks of Israeli warnings that members of the Islamic militant group would not be safe anywhere.
Police at the scene of al-Zahraa district explosion were seen retrieving pieces of the body of Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil. The car exploded outside his home at 10:45 a.m. when he tried to start it, Hamas officials said.
In Israel, the government issued no statement, but security officials acknowledged Israeli involvement in the killing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Israel blames Syria for a Hamas bus bombing that killed 16 Israelis last month, saying it is ultimately responsible for the actions of Hamas and other militant groups it gives shelter to. Khalil's killing appeared as much a warning to Syria as to other Hamas militants.
The Syrian information ministry said in a statement carried by the official news agency, SANA, that Khalil had not engaged in any activity inside Syrian territory.
Ahmad Haj Ali, an adviser to the Syrian information minister, described the killing as a "terrorist and cowardly action."
"This is not the first warning" Israel has tried to convey to Syria, Haj Ali said. "What happened indicates that Israel's aggression has no limits."
The killing, he said, "was meant to deliver a message to the entire world that says: 'We are capable of striking anywhere in accordance with the Israeli agenda.'"
Israel has killed many Hamas leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), including the group's founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, earlier this year. But Sunday's slaying was the first time a Hamas member had been killed by Israel in Syria. Israel unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Jordan in 1997.
A member of the Hamas political bureau, Mohammed Nazzal, told The Associated Press in Cairo, Egypt, that Khalil, 42, used to work for Hamas in Gaza. Israel expelled Khalil from Gaza in 1992 along with a large group of Palestinians who spent weeks in the no-man's land between Israel and Lebanon when the Lebanese government initially refused to accept the deportees to protest their expulsion.
Palestinian sources told AP in Cairo that Khalil was killed because he had been working as a liaison between the group's Gaza leaders and the political wing based in Damascus.
Hamas is one of the most active Palestinian groups opposing the interim peace accords with Israel and has been responsible for numerous suicide bombings in the Jewish state.
Sunday's Israeli action was its first inside Syria since last October, when Israeli warplanes bombed a base of Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group that stages attacks on Israelis. That air attack, the first in two decades, was retaliation for a Jihad suicide bombing at a restaurant in Haifa that killed 19 people.
In the Shajaiyeh neighborhood in Gaza, people converged on home of Khalil's family to pay their condolences.
Rafik Khalil called his brother a "martyr."
"Since he left the country, we have had no contact with him because he chose to live a secret life," Khalil said.
