Israel killed Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari on Wednesday afternoon in an extrajudicial assassination that abruptly ended Egyptian efforts to mediate an end to the fighting between Israel and forces in the Gaza Strip this past week, fighting that left seven Palestinians dead and tens wounded prior to Wednesday’s assassination. Israeli analysts claim this is the beginning of a second war on Gaza.

Israel’s extrajudicial assassination of Ahmed Jabari was not a one-time attack, but further escalation in the aforementioned Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, a fact admitted by Israeli army spokesperson who said that the attack was intended “to severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership,” and not simply to kill a man Israel describes as having “Israeli blood on his hands.”

Israeli military analysts claim this series of attacks against Palestinian leaders in the Gaza Strip has been planned for months.

Israeli ground forces are ready to enter the Gaza Strip should the decision be taken, said Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, and the government’s political-military cabinet is meeting now for updates on the assassination.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has declared an emergency situation in embassies throughout the world following the illegal killing of Jabari.

Ahmed Jabari was born in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City in 1960 and graduated with a degree in history from the Islamic University in Gaza. Jabari was arrested by Israel in 1982 for his activism within the Fatah party, to which he belonged. It is in Israeli prisons, reports note, that Jabari met fellow prisoners on their way to becoming top activists within Hamas, including Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, Nizar Rayyan and Salah Shehadeh. These encounters during this 13 years in prison convinced him to join Hamas. Jabari was also arrested by the Palestinian security forces in 1998 for his activism within Hamas, and subsequently imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for two years.

A 2011 article on Jabari, following the October 2011 prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, quoted friends who stated that Jabari took “almost obsessive care when it comes to his personal security.” “He approaches anything that might pose a risk, even one in a million, with extreme caution, and doesn’t have a cell phone,” the friend added.

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The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which Jabari was said to lead, issued a statement affirming that its fighters would “continue the path of resistance” and that Israel “has opened the gates of hell on itself,“Osama Hamdan, a Hamas representative based in Lebanon, is quoted in Al Jazeera as stating that”We will respond [to the assassination], this I have to say clearly.“Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr condemned the series of air strikes that Israel is currently conducting against Gaza Strip and which led to the killing of Ahmad Al-Jabari,” the statement released by Egypt’s foreign ministry said. Amr called on Israel to stop its strikes on Gaza Strip immediately.

Various spokespersons for the West Bank Palestinian Authority have condemned Israel’s attack, calling on the Palestinian people to unite in order to face these ongoing attacks. PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has requested immediate international intervention to halt Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Palestinian author and analyst Nassar Ibrahim says that the responses of the new regimes in the Arab world are of crucial importance. “Israel has sent a strong message to the Middle East that it will not be affected by the so-called Arab spring and movement toward democracy in the region,” he said. “I assume that Israel received a green light from the United States, for it wouldn’t dare bring western attention, currently occupied with what is happening in Syria, back to Gaza without American backing,“ he added.

“Perhaps Israel assumes that the Arab world is so preoccupied with its own changes and problems that it won’t take any real action against this severe provocation,” Ibrahim posits. “Jordan, for example, was awash with strikes and protests today as a result of the rise in fuel prices.” Ibrahim further debates possible exploitation of this assassination to mobilize Israeli public opinion in run-up to the January 2013 elections in Israel, particularly following the presidential victory of Obama earlier this month.

Ibrahim lastly adds that today’s extrajudicial assassination of Jabarai must also be seen in the context of the Palestinian Authority’s planned move to gain recognition as a non-state body by the United Nations General Assembly. “The killing of Jabari sends a severe warning to the PA and international political forces which may support such a move in the UN,” Ibrahim states.

“Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people must be stopped,” Ibrahim summarises. “Nothing less should be accepted."

Connie HACKBARTH, ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)