Palestinians carry the body of Mahmoud Obeida during his funeral in Jenin on Wednesday. (Reuters)

GAZA CITY, 22 February 2007 — A leader of Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, was assassinated by Israeli undercover units yesterday morning in the Wet Bank city of Jenin, witnesses and sources in the movement said.

Witnesses said that the Israeli special forces entered the city in a white car and ambushed the commander in his car and sprayed the car with bullets. One of the Israeli unit members got out of the car and shot the commander a few more times. They added that a combat helicopter was seen hovering in the area at the time of the assassination.

In a statement the Brigades identified the commander as Mahmoud Obeida, 25, and threatened to retaliate for his assassination. A spokesman of the Brigades said that the assassination will open the door for all forms of reaction and that will be with no limits.

In another development, caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh continued his meetings with representatives of the Palestinian political factions over the formation of the unity government. It is expected that Haniyeh will end his first round of consultations regarding the unity government later in the afternoon but with not much hope of a wide spectrum of factions joining in.

Meanwhile, the major powers trying to mediate Middle East peace gathered to meet in Berlin yesterday as pressure mounted for the international community to give the Palestinian unity government a chance.

The Quartet — Russia, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations — will tackle the diplomatic riddle posed by the power-sharing deal between Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and the Islamist movement Hamas.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to try to convince her allies to withhold recognition of the unity government unless Hamas meets international principles for peace, aides said.

She told reporters after talks with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier ahead of the Quartet meeting that the international partners had agreed to reserve judgment until the Palestinian government is formed.

“We’ve said, all of us, that we’ll await the formation of a new government before making any decisions about what to do, because we don’t want to make premature decisions,” Rice said.

But she said the Palestinian leadership should not expect any flexibility on the conditions the Quartet had laid out.

“Those are not principles put there to be an obstacle, they are put there because they’re foundational for peace,” she said.

“It’s very difficult to imagine a circumstance where you have peace talks but one party doesn’t recognize the existence of the other.” Hamas, which the US, European Union and Israel consider a terrorist organization, has not yet clearly agreed to the West’s conditions of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and honoring past agreements with the Jewish state.

Rice also emphasized the importance of continuing to support Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas.

Rice held an inconclusive summit Monday in Jerusalem with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Steinmeier, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, called the meeting “a first step” but noted that hopes for peace were complicated by the fraught negotiations on the formation of a Palestinian government.

“That is why we need to be particularly realistic going into these talks,” he said, referring to the Quartet gathering.

“We are nevertheless determined to seize this opportunity.” Russia and the UN said they would use the Berlin meeting to push for the unity government to be recognized. Moscow said it would call for the removal of aid and diplomatic boycotts imposed on the Palestinian government after it fell under Hamas’ control following January 2006 elections.

“I count on the Quartet speaking out in support of the agreement to form a new Palestinian government,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview yesterday with Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

— With input from agencies