Jerusalem Post

27 Tishri 5762 12:48Sunday October 14, 2001

(07:55) Disco suicide bombing planner shot dead By Arieh O'Sullivan

An elite IDF sniper unit this morning shot dead Abdel Rahman Hamad, 33, a senior Hamas leader in the Kalkilya area.

Hamad was on the roof of his house when he was struck

by two bullets in the head, the governor of Kalkilya, Mustafa Malki said.

Military sources said Hamad had been responsible for dispatching the suicide bomber who blew himself up at Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium in June 1 killing 23 young Israelis and a suicide bombing at the Nave Yamin gas station which killed two Israeli children.

The sources said that Hamad had been planning more bombings and his name was on a list of terror masterminds that was given to the Palestinians with demands he be arrested.

The PA had detained Hamad after the Dolphinarium bombing but released him on August 5 afterwhich he immediately and organized a number of suicide bombings that were to have take place in coming days, military sources said.

"The assassination today is a clear indicator that all the Israeli claims that they want to achieve peace and uphold the cease-fire are just lies," said Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.

Hamad was considered a senior member of the Hamas military wing Izzadin el-Qassam in the Kalkilya area and was one of the hundreds of Hamas activists who was deported by then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to Lebanon for his involvement in the 1994 suicide bombing on the no. 5 bus in Tel Aviv.

He has been arrested seven times in the past by the IDF, according to Army Radio.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)

-- Anonymous, October 14, 2001