page_title: Nizar Rayan
section_title: Assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Nizar Rayan / Assassination
caption_attribution_description: IAF F-16I Sufa of the 107th Squadron ("The Knights of the Orange Tail Squadron") preparing for take-off during Operation Cast Lead.
context_page_description: Nizar Rayan was a high ranking Hamas leader who served as a liaison between the Palestinian organization's political leadership and its military wing. Also a professor of Islamic law, he became a top Islamic cleric within Hamas after the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004. Rayan was a strong promoter between 1994 and 2004 of suicide bombings on Israel, and his son killed himself on one such mission. Rayan and most of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike during the Gaza War.
context_section_description: Rayan was killed in an Israeli Air Force strike on 1 January 2009 during the Gaza War. The day before the attack, Rayan had advocated renewal of suicide bombings on Israel, declaring, "Our only language with the Jews is through armed resistance and Jihad". A 2,000-pound bomb was dropped on his house by an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, also killing his 4 wives (Hiam 'Abdul Rahman Rayan, 46; Iman Khalil Rayan, 46; Nawal Isma'il Rayan, 40; and Sherine Sa'id Rayan, 25) and 11 of their children (As'ad, 2; Usama Ibn Zaid, 3; 'Aisha, 3; Reem, 4; Miriam, 5; Halima, 5; 'Abdul Rahman, 6; Abdul Qader, 12; Aaya, 12; Zainab, 15; and Ghassan, 16).
  Unlike other Hamas leaders at risk of being targeted by Israel, Rayan did not go underground after the first Gaza war with Israel began in late December 2008. According to a Hamas spokesperson and Rayyan's son, the IDF and Shin Bet warned Rayan by contacting his telephone that an attack on his house was imminent. An Israeli military spokesperson interviewed by The International Herald Tribune "could not give details or specify whether Rayyan's family had been warned."
  Israeli security sources stated that Rayan's house, at the time of the attack, was a munitions warehouse and communications center, and contained a tunnel opening. The sources also stated that a weapons cache in the house triggered many secondary explosions immediately after the air strike. The New York Daily News commented that Rayan had "sacrificed his children - in a vain attempt to protect a weapons base beneath his home." Israeli security forces legal officials regard striking homes used for weapons storage, when sufficient warning is given to the residents, as falling within the boundaries of international law and a legitimate act of war. However, according to B'Tselem (The Israeli Center for Human Rights Information in the Occupied Territories), even if the Israeli charge that Rayan's house was an arms warehouse were true, the large number of civilian lives taken rendered the attack "a grave breach of international humanitarian law."  The Israeli NGO added that, given the Israeli military "knew or should have known" that civilians had not left Rayan's house, warning Rayan of the impending attack did not exempt Israeli forces from responsibility for the civilian deaths. According to the Israeli Government report published in July 2009, Nizar Rayan was not the target of the attack; instead, the operational goal of the strike was to destroy Hamas' central compound which included several buildings that served as storage sites for weapons that included missiles and rockets.  The report further states that specific phone calls to the residents of the targeted buildings were made, as well as three rounds of preliminary warning shots, 13 minutes and 9 minutes before the strike, were fired; a group of the residents leaving the building were seen by IDF surveillance, leading to a reasonable conclusion that the buildings were empty.  The IDF suggests that in this case laws of armed conflict were not violated, as the strike was directed at proper military objective and at-risk civilians were issued effective advance warnings.
  Rayan was the most senior Hamas member assassinated since Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi was killed by an Israeli Apache helicopter strike in 2004. Hamas said that Israel would pay a "heavy price" for his death.
caption: Israeli F-16i of the 107th Squadron preparing for take-off during Gaza War
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