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CNN Live At Daybreak

Hamas Leader Killed in Airstrike

Aired July 23, 2002 - 05:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A leading Hamas militant blamed for hundreds of attacks has been killed in an Israeli air raid.

CNN's Mike Hanna has the story from Gaza City -- Mike.

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, just after midnight last night, the residents of Gaza City were awaken by a massive explosion. It was a missile fired from an Israeli F-16 Bullding (ph) which plowed into an apartment block right in the heart of Gaza.

The target, says Israel, was a leading Hamas militant leader, Salah Shehade, who, they insist, was responsible for numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians.

However, there were a number of other people killed in the blast, as well, including, say Hamas, Shehade's wife and three children. Doctors here at the local hospital say that they have identified 11 bodies. Among those bodies, say the doctors, are a number of children, at least one of them under the age of 1-year-old. Two elderly men were also killed in the Israeli strike.

More than 100 people were wounded. This, I must stress, a densely populated area. Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has expressed regret for the loss of what he calls innocent civilian life, but he describes this operation as a success, having led to the death of the man that he says was carrying out terror attacks against Israel.

The view from the streets of Gaza City very different. The argument of Palestinians that no acts can justify an attack in which many civilians were killed and wounded. And Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups are threatening revenge, saying that they will now carry out further attacks against Israeli civilians.

So once again an escalation of violence threatening in the region -- Anderson.

COOPER: Mike, the last leader of the militant wing of Hamas was also killed, I believe, and there was a wave of retaliation after that. Is that correct?

HANNA: Exactly that. We have seen this as a pattern over the past two years of this Palestinian uprising or intifada. There have been times where it does seem as though there were tentative moves to breaking the cycle of violence. And on each occasion, something has happened, either an attack by Palestinian militants against Israeli civilian targets or the Israeli assassination of individual Palestinian militants, which has led to a resumption, a flaring up of the violence.

This is exactly what we are seeing at this case. What we are hearing from Palestinian militants is that the anger is intense, is that they cannot control those who now want to go and carry out attacks in revenge against Israeli civilians.

This is a time when all parties were talking about ending such attacks, about making tentative moves back to a negotiating table, about restoring contacts between Israelis and Palestinians. All of that blown out of the water, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Mike Hanna from Gaza, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

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