JERUSALEM — Cradling a Galil assault rifle, Saleh Abdel-Rahim Hassan Souwi looked straight at the home video camera and calmly announced his intention to kill himself--and as many Israelis as he could.
"We (are) left with no alternative or choice but to make the entire Jewish people a captive of fear and terror," Souwi said, committing himself to the bombing of a Tel Aviv bus last week that killed 23 people, including himself.
"If our humane demands are not met, we will continue our heroic missions, for there are many young men who love jihad (Islam's holy war) and would love to die for the sake of God."
His testament recorded, the 27-year-old former baker and construction worker, regarded by his friends as shy and quiet, headed for Tel Aviv and boarded a bus filled with Israelis on their way to work. On reaching the city's commercial center, he detonated an estimated 45 pounds of dynamite in an explosion so strong that it lifted the bus about five feet off the street.
Souwi was the latest "martyr" of the Iziddin al-Qassam, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, but almost certainly not the last as the group fills its ranks with other zealots ready to die in the struggle against the Jewish state.
With ready-to-kill, ready-to-die commitments, Hamas' adamant opposition to any Arab compromise with Israel makes it the gravest threat today to Middle East peacemaking. Its attacks on civilian and military targets alike raise the question among Israelis of whether peace with the Palestinians will bring security--or whether it is even possible.
In a terrifying escalation of that struggle, Hamas' military wing has struck three times this month in the heart of Israel.
On the evening of Oct. 9, Hamas gunmen opened fire on cafe-goers in the heart of Jerusalem. That same night, other Iziddin al-Qassam guerrillas kidnaped a 19-year-old Israeli soldier. They killed him during an Israeli rescue attempt five days later. On Wednesday, Souwi blew up the No. 5 bus in central Tel Aviv.
"In my opinion, there will be more attacks," Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, chief of staff of the Israeli military, warned last week. "I don't want us to delude ourselves. We are in a very long struggle. The enemy is tough and persistent."
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has ordered Israeli security forces to broaden their sweep of the Palestinian territories for Hamas leaders and to break up the support network for the Iziddin al-Qassam units. More than 60 arrests have already been made, Israeli sources said, and the campaign will continue until the guerrillas are caught or killed.
