DEATH ENDS ITS HOLIDAY

The terrorist hunters were feeling fairly satisfied with themselves. On Saturday, Aug. 19, after a 10-day chase, Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip finally cornered and trapped Wa’el Nassar, a member of the radical Islamist group Hamas, who they suspected was planning a suicide bombing in Israel. Later that night, the Israelis captured 10 members of a Hamas cell in the West Bank, including, they believed, the mastermind of a bus bombing in the city of Ramat Gan on July 24. The sweep also led to the seizure of three ready-to-go bombs, a car fixed to explode and assorted bomb-making materials. Thus, the counterterrorists reckoned, they were one up on Hamas.

The score was soon settled, however. Last Monday morning a packed bus carrying students and police officers was plodding through northern Jerusalem. At 7:55 an Arab passenger sitting in the back detonated a bomb containing about 10 lbs. of the chemical explosive 3-acetone. The blast was so powerful that it destroyed not only the bus in which the bomber was riding but another traveling alongside it as well. In addition to himself, the terrorist succeeded in killing four passengers, including a visiting American; 107 others were wounded. Israeli security experts were shocked. One high-ranking intelligence official lamented, “We didn’t have as much as an edge of a clue to what was going to happen in Jerusalem.”

After a three-month lull, the battle between Hamas and its foes has again been joined. The blast in Ramat Gan, which killed six Israelis, and now the one in Jerusalem have conjured up images of last fall and early winter, when Palestinian attacks, mostly suicide bombings, claimed 53 victims over four months. The violence nearly sank the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as Israeli public opinion turned against expanding Palestinian self-rule. Now the question is again alive: Will the bloodletting drown the goodwill? “The peace process will go on,” says a U.S. State Department official, “but how long can the Israelis tolerate these attacks?” Israel may have bought some time with the arrest of the 10 Hamas members, plus the 20 more picked up after the Jerusalem bombing. Among those detained in the first roundup was Abdel Nasser Issa, the alleged ringleader and bombmaker in both recent attacks. Israeli officials believe that Issa’s network was one of the pillars of Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank and that by breaking it, they foiled Hamas’ plans for at least four more suicide bombings and the kidnapping of a number of Israeli soldiers. Still, experience suggests that Hamas will rebuild quickly after these setbacks.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has argued that the respite from attacks that began in April was the product of stricter security measures by Israeli and Palestinian officials. Since January, both have cracked down hard on Hamas, making hundreds of arrests, sharing intelligence as never before and even conducting joint operations against the group. Israeli authorities had always doubted that Yasser Arafat, now the head of the Palestinian Authority that governs the self-rule enclaves in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, was really willing to suppress the militants, but his actions this year have tended to resolve those doubts.

The security measures, it now appears, were not effective. In April, Arafat had persuaded Hamas to desist from terrorism at least until July 1, the original target date for an agreement on expanding the Authority’s jurisdiction in the West Bank. Despite the sweeps during the cease-fire, Hamas had no trouble returning to violence once its term was up.

Hamas had its own reasons for a pause. In reaction to the suicide bombings, Israel had placed tough restrictions on Palestinian laborers entering the country each day for work, thereby causing massive unemployment in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. “As a result, the man in the street began to believe the military operations were responsible for his sufferings,” says Ghazi Hamad, the editor of the Hamas newspaper al-Watan, which Arafat shut down three weeks ago. Public support is critically important to Hamas. Formed in 1988 as an offshoot of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, it is committed to a holy war to liberate not only the Gaza Strip and West Bank but also Israel from Jewish control. The group runs a large network of social institutions: mosques, clinics, schools and charities. In recent years, it had been estimated to command the loyalty of about 40% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but recent polls indicate that the number has dropped to approximately 20%.

As Hamas activists tell it, the organization has resumed its guerrilla tactics for a number of reasons. First, the July 1 deadline passed without an agreement on the West Bank, giving Hamas the opportunity to say that bargaining with Israel is futile. (Negotiators are now hoping that they will be able to conclude the talks in September.) Second, Hamas leaders had expected that during the cease-fire, Ara fat’s forces would stop harassing them, but this was not the case. And last, despite the relative quiet, Israel continued to clamp tight restrictions on Palestinian day laborers, ignoring objections from the Authority. That took some of the onus for economic hardship off Hamas. “The Palestinian masses realize now that it’s not Hamas’ attacks that cause their suffering,” says “Faris,” a Hamas guerrilla in the West Bank, “but the racism of the Israeli government and the weakness of the Palestinian administration.”

In the past Hamas publicly celebrated successful suicide bombers, but it was the Israelis who, after their investigation of Issa’s ring, announced the identities of Sufiyan Jabbarin, 26, the Jerusalem bomber, and his Ramat Gan counterpart, Labib Azzam, 22. Hamas’ silence, activists say, was meant to conceal the identities of the bombers’ accomplices. “We don’t want Israeli security to know the circles from which we are operating,” says Amjad, who is connected to the Hamas military wing in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas is working to cover its tracks in several other ways as well. According to Amjad, the entire Wa’el Nassar hunt and arrest were, in fact, a ploy designed to draw attention away from preparations for genuine Hamas operations, a claim Israeli security officials dispute. They say that weeks ago they received information that Nassar was planning to conduct a suicide attack. Having passed the intelligence on to Arafat’s men, the Israelis then sealed their border with the Gaza Strip in order to permit the Palestinian Authority to conduct a thorough manhunt, which eventually resulted in Nassar’s capture. But, says Amjad, “Wa’el Nassar was never planning any operation.” Instead, Amjad claims, “I asked Nassar to disappear, and the Authority started chasing him. We made them crazy. Then, at the proper moment, we leaked his whereabouts.” Meanwhile, the Jerusalem bus bombing was set in motion. According to Hamas insiders, Authority officials had agreed with them that if they were told where Nassar was, he would be released after one month’s detention.

In a leaflet that was distributed after the Jerusalem bombing, Hamas issued a chilling promise that it would make Israel’s future a “terrifying, perturbing nightmare.” Says Faris of the bombings: “We will continue, we will continue, we will continue.” Some Hamas members, however, now appear to be rethinking the group’s strategy of violence and militancy. They talk of focusing instead on aboveboard political efforts, perhaps accepting posts in the Palestinian Authority and participating as a party in Palestinian elections, which are tentatively scheduled to be held late this year.

The Authority, through its on-and-off dialogue with Hamas, is encouraging the moderates. But a senior Palestinian security official admits, “To be honest, we are achieving very little success. The radical wing within Hamas holds the upper hand.” So more young men carrying bombs will board buses, and more innocent men and women will die.

–With reporting by Aharon Klein/Tel Aviv, Jamil Hamad/Gaza Strip and Douglas Waller/Washington