Hamas appoints new leader in secret

Militant Palestinian movement, Hamas, has appointed a new leader to replace Abdul Aziz Rantisi who was killed by Israeli armed forces on Saturday evening.

The group's new leader was appointed in secret last night. Hamas has said that it will not identify Mr Rantisi's successor as he too may fall victim to Israel's policy of targeting the group's leadership.

Following the burial of Mr Rantisi in Gaza yesterday, Hamas vowed to carry out 100 retaliatory strikes against Israelis in revenge for Saturday's missile strike – in which Mr Rantisi and two of his bodyguards died.

At Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon praised the security forces for the "successful operation" and defended the 'targeted assassination' as necessary to fight terrorists who threaten Israel's security and the lives of its citizens.

Mr Sharon said that the policy of engaging in diplomatic efforts – through the Roadmap and last week's unveiling of the 'disengagement plan' – would continue alongside attacks on "terrorist organizations and their leaders".

During the Cabinet meeting, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz also said that Mr Rantisi had orchestrated terrorist attacks on Israelis and was a "source of inspiration" for suicide terrorists.

"It is important that every terrorist leader knows that they are not immune and that Israel will continue to strike at them and at terrorists at the same time as it advances the diplomatic/security process of disengagement," he said.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw strongly condemned the killing as "unlawful, unjustified and counter-productive".

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the assassination and called on the country to end the practice of "extrajudicial killngs which violate international law".

In a statement issued on Saturday evening in New York, a spokesman for Mr Annan said that the killing could lead to "further deterioration of an already distressing and fragile situation".

The White House press secretary Scott McClellan has maintained that Israel had the right to defend itself, but went on to urge Israel to "consider carefully the consequences of its actions". He went on to call for maximum restraint from all parties.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, 56, took over as head of Hamas following the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who also died in an Israeli missile strike in Gaza last month.

Mr Rantisi, one of the six founders of Hamas in September 1987, which included Sheikh Yassin, was jailed between 1988-1990 and, following his release, returned to activity in the Hamas. He was briefly jailed again in 1991.

According Israeli security service sources, Mr Rantisi played a "key and active role" in inciting terror attacks, and persisted in "advocating an extremist position which opposed any cease fire with Israel or any political arrangement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel".

Mr Rantisi, originally from Khan Yunis, was a doctor and a lecturer at the Islamic University.

Elsewhere, the UN meeting on Israel's security barrier in and around the West Bank has concluded with delegates calling on the international community to take immediate steps to stop its construction.

Nasser Al-Kidwa, Permanent Observer for Palestine to UN Headquarters in New York, said after the meeting that the wall made the two-State solution "practically impossible".

In a document adopted at the end of the two-day meeting in Geneva, participants said the wall had "dealt a devastating blow to an already fragile Palestinian economy".

(gmcg)