HE never used mobile phones and slept in a different house every night. But all the security precautions proved in vain last night as Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, leader of Hamas in Gaza for less than a month, was killed when his car was struck by two Israeli missiles, forcing the militant Palestinian group to start the search for a successor all over again.

Israeli security sources said last night Rantissi was assassinated because fresh intelligence had emerged of an imminent massive terror attack by Hamas.

The plot, they claimed, had been hatched in retaliation for the killing last month of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the previous Hamas leader. “We got authorisation from the prime minister to kill them all,” a security source said.

The Israeli foreign ministry described Rantissi as a “mastermind of terrorism, with blood on his hands”.

“As long as the Palestinian Authority does not lift a finger and fight terrorism, Israel will continue to have to do so itself,” said Jonathan Peled, a foreign ministry spokesman.

Ehud Olmert, the deputy prime minister, said that there would be more such assassinations. “No terrorist can go home to sleep at night thinking he is immune,” he said.

“They (militants) are in our crosshairs . . . and should run and hide from the Israeli forces who can get to them everywhere.”

The dramatic attack, however, met with immediate worldwide condemnation, including from Britain. “The British government has repeatedly made it clear that so-called ‘targeted assassinations’ of this kind are unlawful, unjustified, and counter-productive,” said Jack Straw, the foreign secretary.

An official at the US State Department urged Israel to “bear in mind the consequences of what it is doing”, but also called on Palestinians to “get a handle on terrorism”.

The official denied Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, had been given the green light for the attack during a meeting in Washington last week with President George Bush.

Hundreds of Hamas members and supporters flooded to the hospital where the severely injured Rantissi was taken and died. In chaotic scenes, a crowd of Palestinians swarmed around the wreckage of the white car, pulling out what appeared to be fragments of clothing.

One man stuck his hands into the wrecked car, pulled them out covered in blood and waved them in the air.

“Israel will regret this. Revenge is coming,” said Ismail Haniya, a senior leader of Hamas, which has been behind scores of suicide attacks against Israel in a three-year Palestinian intifada, or uprising, and has pledged to destroy the Jewish state.

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