Palestinian bomb-maker had produced a chemical weapon

RAMALLAH — A Palestinian bomb-maker killed by an explosive last week had produced an extremely powerful chemical weapon.

Ibrahim Beni Ouda, a leader of Hamas's Izzedin Kassam military wing, had produced a chemical weapon "capable of killing thousands," the London-based Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported Tuesday. Ouda "secretly produced a chemical substance capable of killing thousands of Israelis if placed in the center of an Israeli city," the paper said.

The paper did not say what became of the weapon after Ouda's death.

Ouda owned a store in Nablus store that produced hearing aids. But the paper said Ouda also manufactured booby-trapped video cassettes for use in attacks against Israel.

Ouda was killed on Thursday when the car he was driving suddenly exploded in the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinians accused Israel of booby-trapping the car. Israel said Ouda blew himself up as he transported a bomb meant for an attack against Israel.

Hamas officials said Ouda had been jailed by Palestinian police for more than two years for producing bombs. They said he had been released on a furlough the day before he was killed.

In London, a senior researcher at a leading think tank said that the establishment of a Palestinian state is inevitable.

"The course of events through which a Palestinian state will emerge cannot be predicted with precision, though its emergence is more likely to be imminent than distant," Assistant Director of the Center for International Studies at Cambridge University, Yezid Sayigh, told a conference at the International Institute of Strategic Studies on Monday.

Palestine would gain "de facto recognition from most of the international community, whatever the circumstances of its birth," but the west "first and foremost can help make the birth of the Palestinian state as easy as possible," Sayigh said.

Sayigh said that any Israeli government would have to deal with the Palestinians as a separate political entity. He also said that the Oslo accords were no longer in force after Israel's aerial bombing of installations in Gaza last week. The attack meant "implicitly that the Oslo framework was over," Sayigh said.