THE hard man of Hamas is a difficult person to meet. In hiding since Israel launched a barrage of Hellfire missiles into his Mitsubishi Pajero last June, Abdel Aziz Rantisi now moves through the narrow streets of the refugee camps in Gaza like a fox in hunting season: lying low, frequently changing hideouts and always on high alert.
His wariness is hardly surprising, given that Israel’s attempt to kill the 57-year-old hardliner demonstrated its eagerness to take out Hamas’s senior leadership. Israeli officials repeated their intentions this week after the extremist group sent two teenage suicide bombers to the port city of Ashdod on Sunday, killing ten Israelis.
So it is that at 8pm, two hours before the time appointed for a rarely granted interview, the man described by Israel as the right hand of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the supreme leader of Hamas, suddenly appears unannounced at the door of the rendezvous in Gaza City. With him are a handful of guards who immediately take up positions near doors and heavily curtained windows, listening for Apache helicopter rotors overhead.
Time is short and, as aides reach for a soft drink, the Middle East’s most controversial paediatrician proceeds straight to business, dispelling any notion that Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Hamas) would suspend its campaign of violence should Ariel Sharon deliver on proposals for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the 40km by 8km (25 miles by 5 miles) Gaza Strip.
“Our strategy is resistance,” he declares, twirling prayer beads as his bifocal spectacles flit from door to door. “If Israel withdraws from Gaza, we will not stop the resistance because the occupation will not have ended. We have all the rest of the Palestinian cities and towns under occupation. Their withdrawal from Gaza is not a solution.”
Hamas, the second-largest Palestinian faction after Yassir Arafat’s Fatah, has put down deep roots within Palestinian society since its birth during the first intifada, through a network of mosques, charities and welfare associations in the occupied Palestinian territories. This framework provides recruits for the armed struggle to “liberate” all of historic Palestine from Israeli control and to mount implacable opposition to the 1993 Oslo peace accords that installed the Palestinian Authority, dominated by Mr Arafat’s secular Fatah faction.
Fatah has been the strongest force within Palestinian society for decades, with numerical superiority and financial resources, but amid widespread public discontent at the Palestinian Authority’s corruption and inefficiency, and open feuding between Fatah’s older generation and younger militias, Hamas poses a real electoral threat to Fatah should the rejectionist group decide that the time has come to drop its boycott of elections.
That time would come immediately after an Israeli withdrawal, Dr Rantisi told The Times. “We will participate in democratic process in any liberated area,” he said. “If you withdraw, it is not by agreement, it would not come under Oslo. It would be land liberated through Palestinian pressure.”
Dr Rantisi was born in Yibne, now the Israeli town of Yavne, near Tel Aviv. His parents were among the thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled to Gaza during the war that led to the creation of Israel in 1948. He trained as a paediatrician and gained a masters degree from Alexandria University, in Egypt, before returning to Gaza as one of the original followers of Sheikh Yassin in the 1970s.
His periods in jail and in exile since give him impeccable credentials among Hamas activists. His impassioned public speaking and ideological opposition to compromise make him a rallying figure for the younger generation of Hamas militants. In one recent poll of Palestinian public opinion, he came third behind Mr Arafat and Marwan Barghouti, the unofficial leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades: the survey showed 25 per cent support for Fatah and 20 per cent for Hamas.
To Israel Dr Rantisi is an implacable enemy prepared to condone the deaths of the innocent civilians among the 450 Israelis killed by more than 100 Palestinian suicide bombers since September 2000. He is described by Israeli officials as being “responsible for directing the policy of the Hamas terrorist attacks”. He is also seen as a key figure in the incitement of anti-Semitic hatred and “one of the main opponents to any ceasefire”.
Hamas has been declared a terrorist organisation by the United States and Israel, although Britain draws a distinction between its military and political wings, proscribing the former but not the latter.
Confronted with such criticism, the imperturbable, bearded figure simply shrugs and declares that Israel has killed more than 40 Palestinians since February. “If they stop killing our civilians, we will stop killing theirs,” he says bluntly. “We condemned what happened in Madrid. The Government of Spain did not commit any massacre toward any people. For us here every day we have a massacre, so we can’t compare the two.”
Dr Rantisi insists that Hamas has no plans to fill the security vacuum that would be created if Israel withdraws, but concedes that the likely lawlessness is regularly discussed by all factions.
“Three days ago we were sitting with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority and they were all afraid of this subject,” he says. “But everybody will make major concessions for his brothers, so there will never be a civil war. Occupation is the problem of the Palestinians, the only problem.”
Until last year Dr Rantisi was a digital-age militant, usually to be found with three mobile phones on the table in front of him, a satellite television over his head and a — bugged — fax whirring in the background. The mobile phones went after the assassination attempt, which he escaped only by rolling out of the Pajero before the second missile struck.
Now he moves around mostly by night, switching cars and meeting his family only during large rallies, where Israel is unlikely to strike after the international furore over 14 Palestinians bystanders killed by a one-ton bomb dropped on Salah Shehada, Hamas’s military leader, two years ago.
In public Hamas remains adamant in its opposition to any deal with Israel, although privately senior figures hint at a willingness to compromise on crucial issues such as Jerusalem and the borders of a future Palestinian state.
But anyone hoping that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza could mean an early end to violence should think again. Jewish settlers and soldiers in the West Bank will continue to be hit, and hit hard, the doctor says. “If we stop targeting those, that means we have given away our country, our homeland. And this will never happen.”
