Jerusalem, October 17
Suspected Palestinian gunmen today assassinated far-right Israeli Cabinet Minister Rehavam Zeevi, dealing a serious blow to US-led peace efforts.The radical Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), group claimed responsibility for the first Arab assassination of an Israeli Cabinet Minister since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.
The PFLP said it carried out the attack on Zeevi, a 75-year-old former General, in retaliation for the assassination of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, by Israeli forces in August.
“The Israeli Government, by killing Abu Ali Mustafa, has opened the gates of hell on itself and now the fire is approaching it,’’ PFLP spokesman Ali Jaradat said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
As news of the shooting broke, dozens of Palestinians in the Ain El-Hilweh refugee camp in south Lebanon rushed into the street carrying pictures of Mustafa and dancing.
Zeevi, who tendered his resignation as Tourism Minister from Sharon’s Cabinet on Monday after it eased a blockade in the Palestinian areas, was hit by two bullets at the door to his room in the Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem.
The police said Zeevi did not have a bodyguard from the Shin Bet internal security service in line with official policy to assign personal protection only to Cabinet members deemed to be at risk.
“The minister, Zeevi, arrived at the hospital dead, with no pulse and not breathing... we resuscitated him... and the heart began beating again... but all the efforts afterwards failed,’’ Avi Rivkin of Hadassah hospital told reporters.
Reuters
