The Koran and the gun – Hamas terror chief Nizar Rayan, killed in an Israeli airstrike Thursday, was a strong proponent of suicide attacks against Jews.
(CNSNews.com) – On October 2, 2001, two Palestinian gunmen infiltrated a Jewish community in the northern Gaza Strip and killed a 19-year-old Israeli soldier and her 20-year-old boyfriend. They wounded 15 other Israelis before eventually being shot by Israeli police snipers.
In a prerecorded message released afterwards, the two young Muslims, wearing Hamas colors and each holding a rifle and a copy of the Koran, declared their allegiance and their intention to die.
“My name is Ibrahim Nizar Rayan, the living martyr,” said one. “I carry out this act to please Allah and to champion Islam and Muslims and our dispersed people who are subjected to the ugliest forms of Zionist terrorism and the killing of the young, old and children, and demolition of homes.”
The terrorist was about the same age of the two young people he had gunned down. Cpl. Liron Harpaz, one of three sisters, had joined the army just one month before and planned to be a teacher. She was taking an evening stroll with her boyfriend, Assaf Yitzhaki, when both were killed.
Ibrahim Nizar Rayan, from Jabalya, was a son of Nizar Rayan, an Islamic scholar, husband of four wives, father to a dozen children, and a leading Hamas ideologue and fervent backer of suicide bombings.
Among the terror attacks attributed to Rayan was a double suicide bombing in the port of Ashdod in March 2004. Ten Israelis were killed in the blasts, detonated by two 18 year olds from Jabalya.
Apart from sending out young bombers, Rayan also played a leading role in the coup that ousted Palestinian Authority (P.A.) chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction from Gaza in mid-2007. His declaration at the time that the Hamas seizure of power marked “the end of secularism in Gaza” prompted fears among some Palestinians about a looming “Talibanization” of the area. He later vowed during a rally that Hamas would topple Fatah in the West Bank as well.
On New Year’s Day 2009, Rayan joined his son in “martyrdom” when the Israeli Defense Force fired two missiles into his Jabalya house. Also killed were his four wives and at least nine of his children.
While other Hamas leaders have gone into hiding after Israel launched its military offensive last Saturday, Rayan defiantly refused to do so. Neither, apparently, had he chosen to send his family away.
According to the Palestinian Ma’an news service, local residents said Rayan had received warnings from the Israeli military about an imminent strike (in line with stated Israeli policy aimed at minimizing civilian casualties) but declined to evacuate the house.
Moreover, the Israeli Defense Force believes Rayan used his family home to stockpile weapons.
“Many secondary explosions also occurred following the strike, indicating weapons stores in the house,” the IDF Spokesman’s office said. “The house was used as [a] massive weapons storage facility, as well as a military communications center. Located underneath the house was an escape tunnel for terror operatives of Hamas’ military branch.”
One day before his death, Rayan recorded an interview which Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television broadcast on Thursday, in which he vowed that the Islamists would be victorious.
“Allah promises us either victory or martyrdom,” he said. “Allah is greater than they [the Israelis] are. Allah is greater than their planes …[and] their rockets.”
He is believed to be the most senior Hamas figure to be killed since its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, died in an Israeli air strike in 2004.
‘Not a smart operation’
Medical officials in Gaza say the death toll since the offensive began has exceeded 400. While most are reported to be attached to Hamas, the United Nations says at least 60 civilians, more than half of them children, are among the dead.
Economist and Gaza Strip resident Omar Shaaban described the situation as “very difficult,” with food running out and markets and shops closed.
“The destruction is massive. Many high buildings collapsed entirely,” he told CNSNews.com by phone. “People are waiting five hours to get bread.”
Shaaban said the Israeli military operation was a mistake because Hamas was drawing more public support. Even though people in Gaza were not happy with Hamas, they felt that they were being punished by the bombing.
“It was not a smart operation. It makes people angry [and] creates more hardship,” Shaaban said. Hamas was also getting becoming popular in the Muslim world and elsewhere and Abbas was being weakened, he said.
Shaaban accused Israel of bombing civilians, but also admitted that Hamas has embedded its infrastructure in the midst of the civilian population. But he sought to justify this by saying that Gaza was a small area and Hamas’ options were limited.
Hazem Abu Shanab, a university professor who briefly acted as spokesman for the Fatah movement in Gaza shortly after the Hamas takeover there, said his home is located near the government compound in Gaza City which Israel bombed earlier this week.
There were no windows left in his house and everyone was ill, he said. His children, aged 13, nine and eight, were “shaking like the buildings,” and tearful, he said, but they were glad that he was there with them.
Abu Shanab, who was incarcerated by Hamas security forces for two months late last year, said Gazans were opposed to the Israeli military operation but that did not necessarily mean they were Hamas supporters or sympathizers.
Hamas was not aware of the reality it faced – it was acting as though it was a superpower, capable of fighting the international community, he said.
After being under Hamas control, he believed Gaza residents would vote for Abbas’ Fatah in the next elections, which may be held in April. He also believed Fatah and independents would win elections in the West Bank.
Abu Shanab said Hamas would not normally allow that to happen but after the current crisis he believes “everything will be changed” and Hamas will no longer have a say in the matter
In a prerecorded message released afterwards, the two young Muslims, wearing Hamas colors and each holding a rifle and a copy of the Koran, declared their allegiance and their intention to die.
“My name is Ibrahim Nizar Rayan, the living martyr,” said one. “I carry out this act to please Allah and to champion Islam and Muslims and our dispersed people who are subjected to the ugliest forms of Zionist terrorism and the killing of the young, old and children, and demolition of homes.”
The terrorist was about the same age of the two young people he had gunned down. Cpl. Liron Harpaz, one of three sisters, had joined the army just one month before and planned to be a teacher. She was taking an evening stroll with her boyfriend, Assaf Yitzhaki, when both were killed.
Ibrahim Nizar Rayan, from Jabalya, was a son of Nizar Rayan, an Islamic scholar, husband of four wives, father to a dozen children, and a leading Hamas ideologue and fervent backer of suicide bombings.
Among the terror attacks attributed to Rayan was a double suicide bombing in the port of Ashdod in March 2004. Ten Israelis were killed in the blasts, detonated by two 18 year olds from Jabalya.
Apart from sending out young bombers, Rayan also played a leading role in the coup that ousted Palestinian Authority (P.A.) chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction from Gaza in mid-2007. His declaration at the time that the Hamas seizure of power marked “the end of secularism in Gaza” prompted fears among some Palestinians about a looming “Talibanization” of the area. He later vowed during a rally that Hamas would topple Fatah in the West Bank as well.
On New Year’s Day 2009, Rayan joined his son in “martyrdom” when the Israeli Defense Force fired two missiles into his Jabalya house. Also killed were his four wives and at least nine of his children.
While other Hamas leaders have gone into hiding after Israel launched its military offensive last Saturday, Rayan defiantly refused to do so. Neither, apparently, had he chosen to send his family away.
According to the Palestinian Ma’an news service, local residents said Rayan had received warnings from the Israeli military about an imminent strike (in line with stated Israeli policy aimed at minimizing civilian casualties) but declined to evacuate the house.
Moreover, the Israeli Defense Force believes Rayan used his family home to stockpile weapons.
“Many secondary explosions also occurred following the strike, indicating weapons stores in the house,” the IDF Spokesman’s office said. “The house was used as [a] massive weapons storage facility, as well as a military communications center. Located underneath the house was an escape tunnel for terror operatives of Hamas’ military branch.”
One day before his death, Rayan recorded an interview which Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television broadcast on Thursday, in which he vowed that the Islamists would be victorious.
“Allah promises us either victory or martyrdom,” he said. “Allah is greater than they [the Israelis] are. Allah is greater than their planes …[and] their rockets.”
He is believed to be the most senior Hamas figure to be killed since its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, died in an Israeli air strike in 2004.
‘Not a smart operation’
Medical officials in Gaza say the death toll since the offensive began has exceeded 400. While most are reported to be attached to Hamas, the United Nations says at least 60 civilians, more than half of them children, are among the dead.
Economist and Gaza Strip resident Omar Shaaban described the situation as “very difficult,” with food running out and markets and shops closed.
“The destruction is massive. Many high buildings collapsed entirely,” he told CNSNews.com by phone. “People are waiting five hours to get bread.”
Shaaban said the Israeli military operation was a mistake because Hamas was drawing more public support. Even though people in Gaza were not happy with Hamas, they felt that they were being punished by the bombing.
“It was not a smart operation. It makes people angry [and] creates more hardship,” Shaaban said. Hamas was also getting becoming popular in the Muslim world and elsewhere and Abbas was being weakened, he said.
Shaaban accused Israel of bombing civilians, but also admitted that Hamas has embedded its infrastructure in the midst of the civilian population. But he sought to justify this by saying that Gaza was a small area and Hamas’ options were limited.
Hazem Abu Shanab, a university professor who briefly acted as spokesman for the Fatah movement in Gaza shortly after the Hamas takeover there, said his home is located near the government compound in Gaza City which Israel bombed earlier this week.
There were no windows left in his house and everyone was ill, he said. His children, aged 13, nine and eight, were “shaking like the buildings,” and tearful, he said, but they were glad that he was there with them.
Abu Shanab, who was incarcerated by Hamas security forces for two months late last year, said Gazans were opposed to the Israeli military operation but that did not necessarily mean they were Hamas supporters or sympathizers.
Hamas was not aware of the reality it faced – it was acting as though it was a superpower, capable of fighting the international community, he said.
After being under Hamas control, he believed Gaza residents would vote for Abbas’ Fatah in the next elections, which may be held in April. He also believed Fatah and independents would win elections in the West Bank.
Abu Shanab said Hamas would not normally allow that to happen but after the current crisis he believes “everything will be changed” and Hamas will no longer have a say in the matter
