The Jerusalem Post reports (13 September) that the Israeli army is on high alert after a weekend of violent clashes with Hamas supporters vowing to avenge the killings of two of its top terrorists. Israel has sealed off the Palestinian-ruled territories since Friday morning, after Israeli security forces on Thursday killed Hamas master bomber Adel Awadallah and his
brother, Imad, in a cottage west of Hebron.

Adel and Imad Awadallah were on Israel's most wanted list for involvement in several terrorist attacks. Imad had escaped from a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho on August 15, incident which Israeli security chief Ami Ayalon questioned as highly unlikely without assistance from PA forces in the jail.

Brigadier General Yitzhak Eitan, commander of Israeli forces in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), said the cottage was in area C, under full Israeli authority, and contained an Uzi
submachine gun, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, two FN 9mm pistols, and hand grenades and ammunition. The army also found an assortment of wigs and hair pieces, including earlocks worn by some observant Jewish males. "From their equipment we understand that the terror cell was on its way to carry out either a shooting attack or a kidnapping," Eitan said.

Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said the movement would respond with revenge attacks. "The demand for revenge will be a popular demand just the way it was after the assassination of Yihya Ayyash [in 1996]," he said. "The Palestinian people is enraged over this crime."

After Hamas bombmaker Yihya Ayyash was assassinated by Israeli forces in January 1996, Israel was struck with a wave of revenge attacks, primarily suicide bombings, which killed some 60 Israelis over the course of two weeks in February and March 1996.