Focus / Sharon's separation plan won't end liquidations

Yesterday's assassination of Islamic Jihad operative Aziz Mahmoud al-Shami in the Gaza Strip was not at odds with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's separation plan. Despite the Gaza separation plan, Israel will continue its "selective assassination" policy. It will target Palestinian operatives who are involved in planning terror attacks, particularly those Islamic Jihad members who take orders from Iran and Damascus. Israeli officials regarded Shami as precisely this sort of operative, and the decision to target him was reached without opposition.

After the initial disclosure of yesterday's killing, reports circulated that the operation's main target was actually Shami's uncle, Abdullah Shami, considered to be an Islamic Jihad leader. But it turns out that Aziz Shami has been targeted by Israel for some time, owing to his past and continuing involvement in terror strikes.

Israeli security officials are likely to dismiss questions about whether yesterday's strike might goad Islamic Jihad into attempting revenge attacks; before yesterday's operation, Islamic Jihad was planning a major attack in Israel, the officials believe. Islamic Jihad has never restrained its terror activity, the Israeli officials claim, and Sharon's announcement of his plans in Gaza has not encouraged the organization to curtail its terror plans.

Islamic Jihad is believed to take direct orders from Iran, and from leaders of its own camps in Damascus. Israeli officials believe the organization makes every effort to attack targets in Israel. Periodically, the Israeli officials add, Islamic Jihad operatives have tried to collaborate with counterparts from the Fatah-related Tanzim organizations.

Israeli officials have learned that a rare form of cooperation was behind the recent Jerusalem bus bombing that killed 11 Israelis and injured dozens. Soon after the attack, reports identified the suicide bomber as a Tanzim-affiliated policeman from Bethlehem. In fact, the name of the policeman/suicide bomber appears on a list of Tanzim and Fatah men. Now it has been learned that his explosive belt was relayed by Hamas. So, an extremist Islamic organization, Hamas, supplied explosives to a policeman affiliated with Tanzim-Fatah - such a sequence points to the atmosphere of terror-anarchy now gripping Palestinian society.