JERUSALEM - Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi was already a marked man when he took over from his assassinated predecessor Ahmed Yassin as Gaza leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas less than a month ago.
Rantissi, a Hamas co-founder, survived an Israeli attempt to kill him last June. After Israel assassinated Yassin in a helicopter missile strike outside a Gaza City mosque on March 22, it moved Rantissi's name to the top spot on its hit list.
Israeli security sources said four drones had been continuously patrolling the skies of Gaza over the past two weeks on the lookout for Rantissi, before he was spotted and killed on April 17.
An Egyptian-trained paediatrician, Rantissi, 56, had long depicted himself as a Hamas politician with no links to the military wing. Israel has refused to accept the distinction, accusing him of being a top decision-maker on attacks.
Filling the role of Hamas spokesman, he issued vows of revenge, often in calm even tones from his modestly furnished Gaza home, for Israel's killing of militants.
"We will fight them until the liberation of Palestine, the whole of Palestine," he told thousands of Hamas supporters after Yassin was killed.
Israeli leaders vowed after Yassin's death to continue to target senior militants.
Taking centre stage
A devout Muslim and father of six, Rantissi has been known to interrupt interviews for his five-times daily prayers. But his Western-style suits and nearly fluent English have also made him media-friendly enough to command air time on CNN and BBC.
Rantissi's hardline approach has won him many admirers among a Palestinian younger generation increasingly radicalized amid Israel's crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Born near what is now Israel's coastal city of Ashkelon, Rantissi was taken as an infant to the Gaza Strip by his family, one of thousands of Arabs displaced during the war that led to the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
He grew up in the Khan Younis refugee camp and received his medical training in Egypt. Returning to Gaza, he helped found Hamas in 1987. The group is dedicated to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state.
He was jailed on and off for years by Israel for his role in a first uprising, or Intifada, that began in 1987.
Rantissi was among 415 men associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad expelled to southern Lebanon in 1992 after a wave of attacks on Israelis. He gained prominence as spokesman for the deportees, who were allowed to return after Israel came under international pressure.
Rantissi later spent time in Palestinian Authority jails for speaking out against peacemaking with Israel. Since the start of the latest uprising, he has played a major role in building Hamas's support, often at the expense of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his mainstream Fatah faction. (Agencies via Xinhua)
