- Israel will continue its policy of assassinating Hamas
officials, a cabinet member said, a day after it killed the Palestinian
militant group's spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City.
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- "We have switched from defence to offence and in
this battle all the members of the Hamas leadership are legitimate targets,"
Interior Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi told public radio.
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- "The days of the terrorist chiefs and commanders
who will not spend all their time trying to survive and still prepare attacks
are numbered," Hanegbi said.
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- At a meeting Monday night, ministers agreed that Yassin's
assassination was only the first step and that Hamas was a "strategic
enemy to be eliminated".
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- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who reportedly personally
supervised the air raid, congratulated his troops on the operation, saying
they had killed "the leader of the Palestinian assassins and terrorists."
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- An opinion poll published Tuesday found a majority of
Israelis support the assassination of Yassin.
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- Sixty percent of people polled by the top-selling Yediot
Aharonot newspaper said they backed Monday's dawn air strike against the
wheelchair-bound cleric while 32 percent said it was wrong.
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- In another poll, published in the Maariv daily, 61 percent
of respondents said they supported the assassination and 21 percent said
they were opposed.
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- The same poll found that 43 percent of respondents would
back a similar operation against veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
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- The surveys found mixed opinions about the impact of
Yassin's killing on the overall security situation.
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- The Yediot poll found 81 percent of respondents thought
the air strike would lead to an increase in "terror attacks"
while only three percent said it would reduce them.
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- But when asked about the long-term impact, 30 percent
said the killing would boost attacks while 32 percent said it would reduce
them.
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- Yassin's assassination sparked widespread international
criticism of Israel but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said it had wiped out
the Palestinians' "chief terrorist".
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- The Yediot poll was carried out by the Dahaf Institute
among a representive sample of 500 Israelis. It said the margin of error
was 4.4 percent.
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- Maariv gave no sample size or margin of error for its
survey.
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- http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040323/1/3iz02.html
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