Hamas vows to avenge

2003-09-06 17:32

Beirut - A senior Hamas official vowed here on Saturday that the Islamic group will react to Israel's failed assassination attempt against its spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.

"The Palestinian people cannot remain silent to such aggressions," Usama Hamdan, Hamas representative in Lebanon, told AFP.

"Israel has crossed all red lines and they have opened the gates for a large escalation. This aggression will lead to a new turn of events that nobody can predict for the time being," he warned.

"This incident has also uncovered the bias of the world which still did not denounce this aggression that also wounded 18 people, including 14 children," he said.

Palestinian security and medical sources said that wheelchair-bound, 67-year-old Yassin was slightly injured in his right shoulder in an Israeli air raid earlier Saturday in downtown Gaza.

Another 17 people, most of them women and children, were also wounded in the raid, Palestinian medics said.

Hamdan confirmed that Yassin was "lightly injured and he is now in stable condition."

"He is undergoing treatment," said Hamdan who did not wish to disclose whether the wounded sheikh had been taken to hospital.

- AFP