40 bystanders hurt in Israeli attack on Hamas leader

Israeli forces attempted to assassinate one of the most feared Palestinian militant leaders yesterday, Hamas' chief bomb maker Mohammed Deif, who has been at the top of Israel's wanted list for six years.

At least two Hamas militants were killed when helicopters fired rockets into a busy street in Gaza. At least 40 people were injured, most of them civilian bystanders, 15 of them children who had just left school. Six people were in critical condition, including some children, according to doctors in Gaza.

But one question was being asked: was Mr Deif one of those travelling in the green Mercedes the rockets hit? Israeli police said he was. Hamas denied the claim.

Senior Israeli officials would only say Mr Deif was the target, but refused to comment on whether he was dead. Palestinian sources said Mr Deif sometimes used the Mercedes. There was said to be an unidentified third body beside two Hamas militants who were named last night.

If Mr Deif is dead, it will be a heavy blow to Hamas. The organisation's political leaders were predicting revenge attacks for the confirmed deaths of two militants. If Mr Deif is dead, Israel will brace itself for a wave of bloodletting. When Mr Deif's predecessor in Hamas, Yehiyeh Ayyash, was assassinated in 1996, dozens of Israelis died in four suicide bombings.

This assassination was the last thing President George Bush wanted when he is leaning on the Israeli government to calm the situation to help the United States court Arab support for a war on Iraq.

But Ariel Sharon's government would regard Mr Deif's death as a triumph. Hamas has emerged as strong as ever despite the invasion and reoccupation of West Bank towns by the Israeli army. The group is still able to make attacks in the hearts of Israeli cities, as it proved last week with a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in which six people died, including a Jewish Briton. Mr Sharon came under heavy criticism from the Israeli media for demolishing Yasser Arafat's presidential compound after that attack but not going after Hamas.

Mr Deif is believed to have masterminded all Hamas suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis since 1996, including last week's. He is regarded as considerably more dangerous than Saleh Shehadeh, the Hamas military leader who was assassinated in July. His ability to evade capture or assassination has been much mythologised. Most Palestinians do not even know what he looks like and he is thought to have had plastic surgery to change his appearance. According to the confessions of Hassan Salaami, a Hamas militant, under interrogation, Mr Deif took over all militant attacks when Ayyash was assassinated. He was arrested and imprisoned by Yasser Arafat in 2000, but escaped, or was released from prison, depending on who you believe.

Witnesses said they saw six Israeli helicopters over Gaza City yesterday before the assassination attempt. There was a traffic jam in the street where the helicopters fired on the car. It seemed clear that firing rockets into the street was likely to injure bystanders.

Hours earlier, Mr Sharon refused to back down to pressure from the US to end the siege of Mr Arafat's compound, claiming the wanted men inside were the "biggest terrorists that exist". Also yesterday, a 14-month-old baby was reportedly killed by fumes from tear- gas thrown by the Israeli army to enforce a curfew in Hebron.