Sheikh Said Siam had no doubt that the Israeli missiles were meant to kill Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the blind and crippled leader of the extremist Islamist movement Hamas. "Firing missiles at a mosque filled with people at prayer is not a message - it's an assassination attempt," Sheikh Siam, Hamas's main interlocutor with the Palestinian Authority, said yesterday.
One of the missiles left a crater beside the Rahma Mosque and scarred its wall with shrapnel. The other failed to explode and was taken away by police sappers. Sheikh Yassin and another prominent Hamas leader, Dr Mahmoud Zahar, were in the mosque during the bombardment by Israeli F-16s. Dr Zahar's house is next to the mosque.
The military wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 26 Israelis in Jerusalem and Haifa on December 1st and 2nd. The group struck again on December 12th, killing 10 Israeli settlers on a bus near Nablus. The attacks have plunged the Israeli-occupied territories into crisis, with Palestinians killed in Israeli incursions and air raids and Palestinian infrastructure decimated by Israeli bombardment. Under intense pressure from Israel, President Yasser Arafat has ordered the arrest of Hamas activists and the closure of their offices.
So it was not surprising that the Palestinian Authority withdrew permission for a celebration of the 14th anniversary of the foundation of Hamas yesterday. At the Yarmook football field, I found not Hamas supporters but 100 Palestinian policemen armed with night-sticks. "Ariel Sharon would use it as a pretext to attack the Palestinians," an officer explained. Most of his men were sleeping in the midday sun. "We're doing anti-terrorism training," he told his superior over a cellphone.
The Palestinian Authority is caught between the determination of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Sharon, to hold it responsible for the actions of Hamas, and the danger of civil war if it cracks down too hard. A recent opinion poll by the Palestinian political scientist Dr Khalil Shikaki showed 27 per cent of Palestinians support Hamas, compared to only 20 per cent for Mr Arafat's Fatah. In student elections at Nablus University last month, an Islamist coalition led by Hamas gained 60 per cent of the vote, Fatah 30 per cent.
Sheikh Siam said the Palestinian Authority continues to arrest Hamas military and political activists, but Mr Arafat's claim to close Hamas offices was meaningless. "Hamas is a resistance movement; it has no offices, no structure." There are Islamic welfare associations that worked in Palestine before Hamas or the Palestinian Authority existed, Sheikh Siam continued. But if Mr Arafat shut them down, it would only increase the suffering of the Palestinian people.
The green flag of Hamas flies over the gate of the Islamic Society, which claims to care for 4,300 orphans under the age of 12 and provide food for 20,000 families in the Gaza Strip.
Sitting in a room filled with sacks of rice and food boxes, Mr Walid Kabaja, one of the society's directors, said the Palestinian Authority had not asked his group to close down.
