DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources evaluate the targeted airborne missile attack that killed two top terrorist operatives in Jebalya Tuesday night as comparable in importance to the January 2001 liquidation of Masoud Iyad, Yasser Arafat’s first contact-man with the Hizballah, who also commanded the first mortar shelling of an Israeli location.
Hassan Madhun who died Tuesday night was the commander of the Masoud Iyad Platoons of the al Aqsa Brigades. He was also the senior Fatah link with Hizballah and his agents were scattered across the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Madhun operated in the guise of a Palestinian security officer, while ordering the special terrorist unit under his command to execute a string of deadly attacks. His last operation was the drive-by shooting that left three Israeli hitch-hikers dead at the Gush Etzion junction east of Jerusalem on Oct. 16.
His companion in the vehicle hit by the Israeli rocket, Fawzi Abu Kara of Hamas, was Madhun’s superior in the Palestinian terrorist hierarchy. He was in fact the top Hamas weapons expert who ran the Qassam missile production lines, while managing the missile bombardment of Sderot and other points in the western Negev. He also designed the Gaza Strip tunnel network known to branch east towards - and possibly under - Israeli territory. Hizballah was the matchmaker that forged the Madhun-Abu Kara partnership-for-terror that was finally destroyed Tuesday. |