Hamas asks PLO for protection from Israeli

Hamas asks PLO for protection from Israeli

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AFP): The Islamic Resistance Movement asked the Palestinian Authority yesterday to protect Hamas leaders after reports that Israel intended to murder them in revenge for the bus bombing.

"I ask the Palestinian Authority to provide protection for the Islamic leaders and for all the Palestinian people," Hamas spokesman Mahmud Zahar said in a statement.

The London Observer newspaper reported Sunday that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had ordered agents to "hunt down and eliminate" Hamas leaders following last Wednesday's atrocity in Tel Aviv.

A Hamas bomber killed 22 people as well as himself, and the fundamentalists have threatened more killings in the fight against Israel.

"Rabin's order according to the Observer to eliminate Hamas people will only serve violence," Zahar said.

Several prominent Hamas people have decided not to sleep at home, one Hamas official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

The Palestinian Authority arrested 350 Islamic militants after Hamas took an Israeli soldier hostage on Oct. 9, the same day gunmen shot dead two people on a Jerusalem street.

"Only about 20 of our people remain in Palestinian jails today," another Hamas leader, Ahmad Bahr, told AFP. "They were released in small batches over recent days."

Palestinian police last week said 80 remained in prison and have not announced further releases.

Rabin's "secret decision" was taken by the cabinet after security chiefs drew up a "hit list" of senior Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and neighboring Arab countries, the Observer said.

"We have taken the decision to teach these bastards a lesson they will never forget," the Observer quoted a source as saying.

"Israel's arm is very long and can reach them in their most secret hideouts. From now on they will never feel safe, wherever they are," the source said.

The newspaper said Israel was allocating resources for intelligence gathering and compared the "strategy of vengeance" to that of late Israeli premier Golda Meir in the wake of the massacre of Israelis at the Munich Olympics.

A dozen top PLO officials suspected of involvement in the 1972 massacre were eliminated by Israeli commandos.