single attack of the five-year-old Palestinian uprising as news emerged that his Hamas organization planned to open a "suicide museum" in a Gaza synagogue.
Abbas al-Sayed was found guilty by a Tel Aviv district court of "planning and orchestrating" the attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Passover eve, 2002, which killed 30 people, as well as the 2001 bombing at the Sharon shopping mall in which five people died.
Sayed, who headed Hamas’s military wing in Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, was convicted of 35 counts of murder and of "being a member of a terrorist organization", the prosecution said in published statement.
DOLLARS PAID
Israeli media said he was also found guilty of receiving tens of thousands of dollars from Hamas’s office in Syria to fund the group’s attacks. He was due to be sentenced later this year, Reuters news agency reported.
El-Sayad pleaded innocent to the charges against him, which also included attempted murder, causing injury in aggravated circumstances and membership in a terrorist organization, several news reports said.
As he was taken out of court in handcuffs, Sayed was heard telling reporters: "We are not talking about regrets … Without stopping the (Israeli) occupation there is no hope at all for security and peace in this region."
HAMAS MUSEUM
It came as Hamas, sworn to Israel’s destruction, announced it planned to open a ‘suicide museum’ in a Gaza synagogue to show the tools used in a campaign of suicide bombings since a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 after peace talks failed.
The museum will reportedly display the "tools" used in suicide bombings and missile attacks to Palestinians burning the abandoned synagogue in Netzarim. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, an organization of evangelicals supporting Israel, said the
display was "part of Hamas efforts to claim credit for the Israeli withdrawal ahead of January elections in Palestinian areas."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged this week that Hamas be barred from running in those elections unless they lay down their arms and cancel their "horrible" charter calling for Israel’s destruction, news reports said.
CHARTER NOT KORAN
In an apparent attempt to answer its critics, senior Hamas leader Mohammed Ghazal reportedly said this week that the group could one day amend its charter calling for the destruction of Israel and hold negotiations with the Jewish state, noting that "The charter is not the Koran."
He also urged the withdrawal of Israeli troops to the pre-1967 war borders and the return of Palestinian refugees, which critics argue is the same as asking for the destruction of the Jewish state.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed concern and was quoted as saying that "there is a fundamental contradiction between armed activities and the political process." But Rice also pleaded for time for Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, adding, "I think we have to give the Palestinians some room for the evolution of their political process," she said. (With reports from Israel, BosNewsLife Research and Stefan J. Bos)
