| July 11, 2008 The Qassam Brigades, the armed
wing of Hamas Movement, on Friday vowed to retaliate to the
Israeli occupation forces' assassination of its field commander
Mahmoud Asy in the West Bank.
The armed wing in a communiqué said that the "martyr was wanted
by the IOF and the PA security apparatuses (in the West Bank)
for the past year". The communiqué described those apparatuses
as "loyal to the enemy".
It noted that Asy, 45, was killed after a "violent clash with
the Zionist occupation forces" during which one of the officers
was wounded.
"The disciples of Sheikh Mahmoud Asy will avenge his
assassination one day," it underlined, adding that the armed
wing will retaliate to the "crime" at the "opportune time and
place".
For his part, Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza,
said that the IOF assassination of Asy fell in line with the
"Zionist attempts to liquidate resistance groups atop of which
the Qassam Brigades".
He told PIC that the martyr had participated in numerous
operations against "Zionist occupiers", which points to the role
of the Qassam Brigades in confronting the IOF aggression on "our
people in the West Bank".
Abu Zuhri asked the PA security apparatuses in the West Bank to
stop prosecuting resistance fighters, to return their weapons
and to release their detainees to enable them confront "the
incessant Zionist aggression on our people".
Israel Assassination
A Qassam activist was killed and two Israeli occupiers were
wounded in clashes that took place around the northern West Bank
town of Qalqilya on Friday morning.
Local sources confirmed the death of 45-year-old Mahmoud Asi
from the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan and who was wanted for
the occupation forces for a number of years.
The IOF for its part admitted that one officer was moderately
wounded in the calsh.
The Israeli radio said that the IOF troops were combing the area
after an attack on a settler's car near the settlement of Yakir
in the Qalqilya district, adding that the attack resulted in the
wounding of a settler.
Asi was also wanted by the Abbas's security agencies since June
last year to the extent that those agencies detained his
children, one of them is paralysed, to force him to give himself
up. The same agencies coordinated a raid with the IOF of his
home village to capture him but failed.
Asi was banished to southern Lebanon in 1992 along with hundreds
of Hamas activists and spent a number of years in Israeli
occupation jails. He is a prominent Hamas figure in the Salfit
area. |
Save
