PLO Urges Calm After Slaying of Jihad Leader

By MARY CURTIUS

Oct. 30, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Calling on the militant Islamic Jihad movement to refrain from avenging the killing of its leader, the Palestine Liberation Organization warned Sunday that any attack on Israelis could delay the expansion of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank.

“We appeal to the Islamic Jihad to exercise self-restraint so that some hard-line groups in Israel would not achieve their goal of halting implementation of the agreement,” said Atayeb Abdel Rahim, secretary general of the governing Palestinian Authority. He spoke to reporters in Amman, Jordan, where PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat is attending a regional economic summit with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Nonetheless, Islamic Jihad issued a leaflet in Gaza on Sunday blaming “Zionist bullets” for the death of Fathi Shikaki and warning that it will, indeed, seek revenge.

“We assure the assassins of the Zionist entity . . . that this ugly crime will make every Zionist on the face of the Earth a target for our painful strike,” the leaflet said.

Islamic Jihad officials confirmed Saturday night that Shikaki was shot to death Thursday on the island of Malta and blamed the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, for the attack.

Israeli officials did not deny the charge. Under Shikaki’s leadership, Islamic Jihad has carried out dozens of deadly attacks on Israelis in the past decade.

“I think his business was murdering, so if there will be one murderer less, I don’t see how it’s going to affect the peace process,” Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters in Jerusalem.

On Sunday, Shikaki’s family greeted grim-faced mourners at their home in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, and said they were proud of the attacks he had ordered against Israelis.

“Can’t you see what the Jews are doing to us? It’s a two-way street,” said Leila Shikaki, Fathi’s sister.

“We can hold our heads up high. Our brother was a source of pride,” said Amna, another sister.

Islamic Jihad said Sunday that it has already appointed a new secretary general, a Gazan economist named Ramadan Abdallah, who was deported to Lebanon by Israel in the 1980s and now lives in Damascus, Syria. Abdallah’s brother Omar was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Palestinian Authority court in Gaza earlier this year for inciting teen-agers to become suicide bombers.

Islamic Jihad supporters insisted that Shikaki’s death will not cripple the organization, the most militant and uncompromising of Palestinian factions. Islamic Jihad rejects the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace accord and has vowed to eliminate Israel by force. It is thought to have no more than 300 fighters in Lebanon and about that number in Gaza.

Shikaki founded the organization in 1980 and was both its chief ideologist and overseer of its operations. He had close ties to both the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran and to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

“Fathi was very important to the movement. He was a thinker; he was a leader,” said Adnan abu Hasnah, the editor of the Islamic Jihad newspaper, Al Istiqlal. “But in an Islamic movement, if you lose a leader, the movement is strengthened, not weakened. It is a part of our ideology to be encouraged by the death of a shahid [martyr]. Always, in these movements, the death of a leader makes them more radical.”

Hamas, the larger Palestinian Islamic movement, said Sunday that it will not allow Shikaki’s death to disrupt its negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over the halting of Hamas attacks on Israelis or Hamas participation in upcoming Palestinian elections.

Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Ghosheh told reporters in Jordan that Shikaki’s murder “should not affect preparations for a reconciliation dialogue between the [Palestinian] Authority and Hamas.”

Hamas leaders have been negotiating an accord with the Palestinian Authority for several months. Both sides say the agreement may be signed next month in Egypt or Sudan.

Shikaki had held his group aloof from those negotiations, although Islamic Jihad has joined Hamas in refraining from carrying out attacks for months. Islamic Jihad activists said Sunday that the movement’s opposition to the peace accords, its commitment to armed attacks on Israelis and its refusal to participate in Palestinian elections will be unchanged by Shikaki’s death.

Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority agreed Sunday that a one-hour commercial strike will be observed throughout the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem today to honor Shikaki.

Israel’s army was on high alert in the West Bank on Sunday, bracing for reaction to Shikaki’s death. But only minor disturbances were reported.