A militant’s final deadly mission

Palestinian man, 20, killed in the abduction of Israeli soldier, had spent months training for his last operation

BY MATTHEW MCALLESTER | Newsday Staff Correspondent

June 30, 2006

RAFAH REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza - Three or four weeks before he died, Hamed Rantisi's mother recalled yesterday, the 20-year-old started leaving the house at about 5 in the morning, claiming he had a new job selling clothes in the local market.

Rantisi wasn't selling clothes.

He was training for his part in a daring, underground raid in which an Israeli soldier was kidnapped, an operation that has pushed this region to the edge of major warfare.

Killed during the attack Sunday on an Israeli military post, Rantisi was part of a group of Palestinian kidnappers who have forced the people of Israel to collectively hold their breath in the hope Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, will come home alive. Thousands of Israeli troops have amassed at the edges of the Gaza Strip, poised to penetrate further into Palestinian territory. World leaders have called for a peaceful resolution to a stand-off that could result in extensive bloodshed.

Many Palestinians who have died in the six-year conflict with Israel have little to show of military, political or propagandistic value after their death. Rantisi is different: He has left a dramatic legacy. Not since 1994 have Palestinians managed to kidnap an Israeli soldier, and his group's actions have huge support among people in Gaza. In the eyes of many, it is a rare victory against a military so much more powerful than the Palestinian militias.

In return for Shalit's freedom, the group holding him has demanded the release of all women and children being detained by Israel. The Israeli government has ruled out an exchange. "He's the only prisoner we have, but they have lots," explained Rantisi's brother, Mohammed, 28.

Support for the kidnappers' actions is so powerful in Gaza that in their very success, they may have unexpectedly created an impossible situation for themselves, senior Palestinians said.

"If they release him, there's going to be a problem for them. If they keep him, there will be a problem ... ," said a senior Palestinian Authority security official. In other words, he said, if the kidnappers let Shalit go without extracting concessions from Israel, their people will see them as cowards and pariahs. If they keep him too long, it is likely they will be killed by Israel or military action.

There is also a strong sense among many Palestinians that to hand over Shalit would be to betray the sacrifice made by Rantisi and two other militants who were killed during Sunday's raid.

The attack probably took months to prepare. Militants dug an 800-yard tunnel under and an Israeli border post, emerging before dawn to attack unsuspecting Israeli soldiers. Two soldiers were killed. Five militants escaped back to Gaza with Shalit, who is believed to have been lightly wounded.

To Rantisi's family, it was a glorious end to a young life spent in conflict. When the Intifada began in 2000, he joined the groups of stone-throwing boys who battled it out with Israeli soldiers before the armed Palestinian groups took over the fight.

Adult militants would watch the boys for potential recruits, Rantisi's mother, Mariam al-Hamas [CORRECTION: Because of an editing error, the name of the mother of Hamed Rantisi, a Palestinian killed during the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, was misspelled Friday. Rantisi's mother is Mariam al-Hams. PG. A11 ALL 7/1/06], said. But Rantisi approached the militants himself.

He joined the Popular Resistance Committees, largely because many of his friends were either in or were joining that militia. At first, his family said, he learned how to assemble and lay simple pipe bombs, targeting Israeli military vehicles. He soon moved on to learn how to fire weapons such as Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers.

To make money when he wasn't fighting, Rantisi owned and operated two simple merry-go-rounds, which he pushed by hand. In an earlier raid, an Israeli tank crushed one; he sold the other a week before he died and gave his mother the proceeds.

In the years between his recruitment in the militia and his death, he turned his brown-painted bedroom door into an ever-growing collage of stickers featuring friends who had died fighting Israel. His family said he decorated the walls of the family living room with more posters of Palestinian 'martyrs.'

Now, it is his turn to gaze silently down on the room.

When asked what she would say to Shalit's mother given the chance, Rantisi's mother said she was proud of her son's actions but could sympathize with his mother's agony.

"I saw my son dead on television," said al-Hamas, who has seven surviving children and lives in a narrow, concrete house. "I tell their mothers not to send their sons fighting against Palestinians. We feel sorry for our sons as they do."

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Palestinian man, 20, killed in the abduction of Israeli soldier, had spent months training for his last operation

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