Meet Israel's New Enemy No. 1

By Tim McGirk

When Israeli F-16 fighter jets shrieked low over the summer palace of Syrian President Bashar Assad last Wednesday morning, the message was clear: Stop sheltering Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of Hamas who is No. 1 on Israel's hit list. "He is definitely in our sights," says Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon. "He is a target."

Mashaal, who lives in Damascus under Syrian protection, is suspected by the Israelis of having ordered militants to kidnap Corporal Gilad Shalit and take him to the Gaza Strip, although Hamas and other Arab officials insist Mashaal was not directly involved. The Israelis believe he ordered the high-stakes hostage taking to scupper attempts by the Hamas-led government to join in unity talks with moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that would implicitly recognize Israel's right to exist.

The Israelis once tried to kill Mashaal and nearly succeeded. In 1997 two Israeli Mossad agents in Amman tried to assassinate Mashaal, who was allegedly running money and supplies to Palestinian militants in the occupied territories, by smearing his neck with poison. Both would-be assassins were caught, and as Mashaal was dying from the lethal toxin, Jordanian authorities made a deal: they would release the captured Mossad agents in exchange for an antidote to save Mashaal's life. The Israelis complied, and the uproar generated by the botched assassination attempt catapulted Mashaal to the top tier of Hamas' leadership, which had been depleted by Israel's targeted killings.

Mashaal, 50, a charismatic ex--physics professor, has remained a thorn in Israel's side. Because Israel has barred Hamas' elected leaders, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, from traveling outside the occupied territories, Mashaal, from his exile in Damascus, has been the militant movement's most effective spokesman and fund raiser. Owing to his lobbying, Iran has pledged $100 million in aid to the Hamas-led government, crippled by a five-month economic blockade imposed by Israel and others in the international community. In the past, Israel showed little hesitation in hitting Hamas militants inside Syria with air strikes, and the buzzing of Assad's Latakia palace shows the Israeli military might be prepared to do so again. Mashaal has gone into hiding, Hamas sources say, but is still believed to be in Damascus.

There is no clear evidence that Mashaal was responsible for the soldier's kidnapping. According to Palestinian sources close to Hamas' secretive inner workings, Mashaal had no motive for sabotaging any future peace talks between Prime Minister Haniya and the more moderate President Abbas. To the contrary, says Osama Hamdan, Hamas' chief representative in Lebanon, Mashaal was instrumental in persuading Haniya and other Hamas leaders to accept Abbas' peace proposal, a plan based on a document crafted by Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails that indirectly accepts Israel's right to exist. According to Hamdan, Mashaal "reached a kind of unity among Palestinians."

Palestinian sources tell TIME it's more likely that Shalit's abduction was planned by a radical Palestinian faction that believes Hamas' leaders were giving away too much to the Israelis. Whatever the case, the Israelis have made it clear that as long as their young soldier is a hostage, Mashaal's life is in danger too.

With reporting by Nicholas Blanford/ Beirut, Jamil Hamad, Aaron J. Klein/ Jerusalem, Scott Macleod/ Cairo