'For us, the preferred way of ending our lives would be martyrdom'

Abdul-Aziz Rantissi is constantly interrupted by calls. But his young bodyguard, Kalashnikov rifle nursed upside down on his knee, hands him a big military two-way radio receiver, not a mobile phone. I think – but I do not say – that this is to protect the Hamas leader. Mobiles are traceable to within a few feet. Israel's death squads became masters of analogue and digital technology in Lebanon.

From time to time, I notice that my eyes stray to the window. Am I watching for an Apache helicopter? Do Israel's victims ever see the missiles streaking towards them? Not that Mr Rantissi has any illusions. "It's something to be expected so far as we are concerned," he says. "But the thing I can say is something that can only be understood by someone who holds the Islamic faith the way I do.

"We believe that our lifetime is always predicted and that our death has already been determined by God, and this cannot change. There are many different reasons that could lead to the end of a person's life – a car accident, cancer, a heart attack – so I'm not saying I'm making a choice to shorten my life. But the preferred way of ending my life would be martyrdom."

My eyes glance again towards the window. Of his 55 years, Rantissi has spent 26 in prison or in exile on a Lebanese mountainside. That's where I met him first, nine years ago amid the flowers of Marj el-Zuhour after his exile by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, along with 460 other Hamas and Islamic Jihad followers. In those days, he was still trying to understand how to run the organisation. Now he talks coolly – coldly, frighteningly – about suicide bombers and death. Hamas has its own death squads. They kill not just soldiers but also women, children, the old, the sick.

"Up till now, in this 'intifada', the Israelis have killed more than 2,000 Palestinians. Following the killings in Nablus and Jenin, the number of children killed has passed the 350 mark. This proves that the Israeli side is intentionally committing massacres against civilians."

I have been down this path before, of course. Every time you ask a Hamas leader to confront the wickedness of suicide bombing, you are taken down the statistics trail. What about the kids in the pizza parlour, the old folk at the Passover dinner? "We are fighting people who violated our land," he replies, very quickly.

"They are all soldiers or reserve soldiers. It was reserve soldiers in Jenin who killed civilians – these are people who in ordinary life are Israeli doctors and lawyers. They were civilians just hours before they went into Jenin. But, of course, our fighters have orders to avoid civilians, especially the children."

Orders to avoid killing children? Or is this just a numbers game? The military phone pips again and Rantissi talks for several minutes. Is he in touch with Hamas leaders in the West Bank? He smiles bleakly. "There is some communication on a political level with leaders in the West Bank, yes. But they are wanted men and besieged and underground."

This, I note in the margin of my notebook, is the first time Hamas has acknowledged the effects of the Israeli re-occupation. "You take Hassan Youssef, a political leader in Ramallah – he is calling me for information about what is going on. But ultimately Sharon will not be able to put an end to resistance in the West Bank. When the Israelis deported 460 of us in 1993 and arrested another 1,500 Hamas members the same day, they said they had 'put an end' to resistance and to Hamas. After that, Yahyia Ayash [a Hamas bomb-maker later assassinated by the Israelis] escalated the resistance."

Marj el-Zuhour, the hillside upon which the Hamas and Islamic Jihad men spent more than a year of their lives after deportation, became a kind of Islamic college. "It was a stage which changed the Palestinian struggle," Rantissi accepts. "It changed the history of Hamas for ever. Before that it was a local movement. After our exile on the hillsides of Lebanon, it became an international organisation, known all over the world. We received the benefits of Israel's mistakes."

There is no doubt who Rantissi's principal enemy is. "Sharon wanted to rip up the Oslo [agreement] papers," he says. "He is exercising his power over the Palestinian people – destroying or wilfully killing them – in order to compel them to leave. He wants to break our will so that we will accept his humiliating conditions. He also wants to create a conflict between the Palestinian Authority and the people."

So is the Gaza Strip next for Israeli re-occupation? "I want to remind you of something that Rabin said – that he hoped to wake up one morning to find Gaza swallowed by the sea. Gaza is a big, overcrowded prison. Sharon's entry into Gaza would mean widespread killings among the Palestinian people.

"And heavy casualties to the Israeli forces. Sharon would have to provide a reason for this to the Israeli people. His justification for the re-invasion of the West Bank was because 'martyrdom' [suicide] operations had been launched from there. He cannot use the same excuse about Gaza because it is so tightly besieged. So I think the chances of invasion are smaller rather than greater."

So what, I ask, about Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Palestinian suicide bombers will soon be stalking the streets of New York? "We have just one enemy that is occupying our land," he replies. "We have just one front which is against the occupiers and we will not at any time attack targets outside the borders of Palestine." And what if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders? Would that end the Hamas war?

"Firstly, I want to hear from the Israelis. Are they prepared to do that or not? Arafat asked them to do that. They refused. Bear in mind that Sharon, during the election, was referring to Jenin as occupied land that belonged to Israel. We can't be expecting to offer endless compromises when they are occupying our land and our holy places." Which, to utilise Winston Churchill's old saw, sounds more like war-war than jaw-jaw.

© 2002 The Independent