Gaza, Aug 25: The political leader of Hamas ruled out restoring a ceasefire and dismissed Palestinian Authority plans to crack down on militants in the Gaza Strip, saying it would not dare to carry them out for fear of mass opposition. Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi was speaking yesterday moments before Israeli helicopter missiles killed a Hamas military wing commander and three other Hamas members while they were walking on a beach nearby.

Israel assassinated a senior Hamas colleague of Rantissi`s in Gaza City with a missile barrage on Thursday, two days after a Hamas suicide bomber killed 21 Israelis in Jerusalem. Israel`s Army chief warned yesterday that high-ranking Muslim militants faced ``liquidation``. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, under US diplomatic pressure, ordered steps to subdue militants in Gaza. Rantissi scorned the move.

``I don`t believe they will dare do it,`` he said of the declaration to halt rocket and mortar fire on Israelis frequent during a 35-month-old uprising, shelved during the truce and resumed after Thursday`s killing of Hamas`s Ismail Abu Shanab. ``They will try to stop Hamas if there is continued aggression by the Israelis. It would be a very big mistake,`` Rantissi told news agency in an interview.

Opinion polls show Islamic militants command more popularity in Gaza than the Palestinian authority, whose policy of talks with a right-wing Israeli government loath to cede occupied territory is seen by many here as humiliating and hopeless.

Tens of thousands of people turned out for Abu Shanab`s funeral, screaming abuse against the Palestinian Authority. Rantissi was seated along with hundreds of Hamas supporters in a traditional Islamic mourning tent set up in downtown Gaza City for Abu Shanab, who died in the flaming wreckage of his car hit by five helicopter missiles.

Bureau Report