Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

230 • HAMASOn 5 January 1996 Israeli intelligence agents assassinated YahyaAyyash, believed to have been the mastermind behind most of thesuicide bombings since October 1994, by means of a booby-trappedcell phone. Hamas retaliated with four suicide attacks from 25 Februaryto 4 March, killing 61 and injuring more than 200 others. Thissurge in suicide bombings led to an unprecedented three-way meetingof Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials with both Israeliand Palestinian security officials to discuss ways to stop the wave ofsuicide attacks. After 4 March 1996 there was a lull in Hamas activitythat lasted until 21 March 1997.During 1997 Hamas conducted two suicide attacks, one in TelAviv on 21 March and another in Jerusalem on 30 July, killing a totalof 20 people and injuring more than 150 others.On 25 September 1997 Israeli agents attempted to assassinateKhaled Meshal, the Hamas political leader, in Jordan with an unidentifiedinjectable poison. Both Mossad agents involved were captured,and the bungled operation caused the government of Israeli PrimeMinister Binyamin Netanyahu great embarrassment at home and aloss of leverage with Arab leaders who had previously supported thepeace process. To forestall an Arab backlash, Israel released SheikhAhmad Yasin from prison on 1 October 1997, which apparently wasalso part of a deal to gain the release of its two agents from Jordan.Yasin flew first to Jordan, where he was greeted by Yasir Arafat, thento Gaza on 6 October, where he received a hero’s welcome. The releaseof Sheikh Yasin may also have been calculated to widen a splitthat had appeared in Hamas’s leadership in the hope that Yasin mightsanction some form of truce with Israel, but on 22 October 1997Sheikh Yasin delivered a fiery speech to 3,000 students of Gaza’sIslamic University urging Hamas not to end its jihad against Israel.From 19 February 1998 until 25 June 1998, Sheikh Yasin touredseveral Arab nations, beginning with Egypt where he was supposedlyseeking medical care, and then continuing to Saudi Arabia, Qatar,the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and Sudan,greatly boosting the status of Hamas in the Muslim world.During 1998 the Palestinian Authority (PA) found itself at oddswith Hamas over the 29 March 1998 death of Muhyiaddin al-Sharif,a Hamas bomb maker, whom Hamas claimed had been killed bythe PA as part of a deal with Israel. Israeli authorities had in factincreasingly been calling on Arafat to intervene to prevent Hamas