Sheikh Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader and cleric, was killed along with several others on Thursday when an IAF aircraft dropped a bomb on his Jabalya home, the IDF said. [...]Now he can go to hell along with Yassin and face trial in the highest court.
A large cloud of smoke billowed above the northern Gaza town after the attack, and Palestinian sources were quoted by Channel 2 as saying that the air strike was carried out by F-16 fighter jets.
Security officials said that Rayyan was not only the religious leader of Hamas's military wing, Izzadin Kassam, but also one of their military commanders. He was often seen in uniform, and participated in military exercises. He was considered one of the most fanatical Hamas commanders, and was close to Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh, who was killed by the IAF in 2002.
He was both the director and the financier of the 2004 terrorist attack at Ashdod's port which killed ten Israelis.
In October 2001, he sent his son to perpetrate a suicide attack in the Gush Katif settlement Elei Sinai, in which two young Israelis were killed.
Channel 10 reported that Rayyan had replaced Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as the organization's top clerical authority after Yassin's assassination in 2004.
According to Palestinian sources, his family was warned before the attack but did not leave the building, Army Radio reported. [...]
Rayyan was the fourth senior terror figure to be killed in air strikes Thursday as the air force appeared to step up the pressure on the leaders of Hamas and its allies in the Gaza Strip.