Israelis Divided on Slaying of Militants

JERUSALEM —  As new details emerge about Israel’s killing of two Islamic militants, including information that they died in a targeted attack, many here asked Monday whether such operations halt extremist violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military officials have said they believe that the deaths Thursday of Hamas activists Adel and Imad Awadallah dealt a crippling blow to the militant Islamic movement, which has killed scores of Israelis.

But several Israeli analysts and commentators said they fear that the killings may produce only a short period of relative calm.

“There may be a period of time while the next wave of commanders for Hamas is equipped and trained,” said Menachem Klein of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University and an expert on Islamic extremism. “I believe the motivation for retaliation will be very high, not only because the Awadallahs were killed but because of the way they were killed. They were executed.”

Danny Rubinstein, a respected journalist who has long covered Palestinian issues for the Haaretz newspaper, wrote in a column Monday that the movement’s leadership is likely to view Israel’s action as demanding “a response from Hamas in the form of an attempted terror attack. . . . A lack of response will be interpreted as incompetence on the part of a movement that has been considerably weakened.”

Other experts, however, argued that the chance to halt even a single attack gave Israel no choice but to carry out such an operation.

The Awadallah brothers were “very dangerous people,” said Yigal Carmon, who served as anti-terrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers. “If we had left them alive, they could have carried out many more terror attacks against us.”

A debate over the effectiveness of strikes against extremist organizations also emerged after the U.S. attacks against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan in response to last month’s bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Israel strongly supported the U.S. action.

Adel Awadallah was considered a top leader of the underground military wing of Hamas, known as the Izzidin al-Qassam brigades; his brother was his chief assistant. They were killed in an operation carried out by the Israeli army and an elite border police squad at an isolated farmhouse in the hills west of Hebron in the West Bank.

The army said initially that it discovered only after the raid that the dead men were the Awadallahs. They were wanted in connection with several attacks in Israel, including last year’s deadly bombing at a Tel Aviv cafe.

But Maj. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, who heads the Israeli army’s central command, which includes the West Bank, later changed the official account. Yaalon said that the owner of the house, a Hebron businessman, told the Israelis before they stormed the building that the occupants were the fugitive brothers.

Although officials also said at first that the men were shot during a confrontation with Israeli forces, Yaalon said the Awadallahs were taken by surprise and killed before they could fire back with the pistols and automatic weapons each was wearing. The general said he gave the order to launch the attack after the owner, who was arrested leaving the house, told the Israelis that the men had just eaten and were preparing to sleep.

“The order was to try to arrest them, [but] in the end we couldn’t do that” without risking Israeli lives, Yaalon said in a briefing.

Inconsistencies remained in the government’s statements about the incident. Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai said again Monday that the deaths had occurred during a “clash” between the brothers and Israeli forces.

The Israelis also have given varying responses to persistent rumors that Palestinian security forces played a role in helping to track the men to their hide-out.

An army spokesman and other senior officials denied that the Palestinians assisted in the operation.

Yaalon said he could not confirm or deny the reports.

The general said Israel and the Palestinians have “good cooperation” on many security cases, but he added that it is better not to publicize that cooperation because of the risk that Palestinian commanders will be accused of collaborating with Israel.

The timing of the killings could hardly have been worse. U.S. envoy Dennis B. Ross is in the region to try again to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to reach agreement on an Israeli troop withdrawal from land in the occupied West Bank.

With the two sides now in tentative agreement that the Israelis will withdraw from 13% more of West Bank land, the top issue is a memorandum outlining cooperation on security issues, including the battle against extremists. After the brothers’ slayings, however, both Israeli and Palestinian officials are under internal pressure not to appear too eager to cooperate.

Palestinians are angry over Israel’s closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which keeps thousands of Palestinians from reaching jobs in Israel. The Israeli government says the closure is necessary to prevent revenge attacks and may stay in place during the Jewish holiday period that begins next week.

The Israelis are expected to use the case to reiterate that they face danger from Islamic militants trying to scuttle Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Ross is expected to remain in the region for a few more days, a U.S. spokesman said. But there are no signs that a breakthrough in negotiations is imminent.