In November, the car of Jamal Abdel Razak, a Fatah fighter, was ripped by machine guns, killing three other people. The Israeli army accused Abdel Al of planting bombs along Israel's security road between Rafah and Egypt, and near Jewish settlements, and of arming suicide bombers who carried out a devastating attack inside Israel in 1995. Abdel Al was jailed without charge by Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority in 1997, when security forces of both sides waged a joint campaign against Hamas and Islamic Jihad bombers. But to Israel's fury, he and several hundred other militants were freed last October and regrouped to perpetrate a spate of bombings against Israeli civilians, including one last week that injured three people. Efraim Sneh, Israel's deputy defence minister, defended the assassination.
People involved in terror are targets.
However, the Palestinians, still smarting from the seizure of five members of Force 17 by Israeli undercover units on Sunday, claimed the attack amounted to Israeli state-sponsored terrorism. Last Friday, one of Mr Arafat's legion of advisers warned the Palestinian leader in writing that he had learned from his contacts in Israeli intelligence of a plan to assassinate senior members of the administration.