GAZA, Sept. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- The Palestinian National Authority(PNA) Saturday condemned Israel's assassination attempt on Hamas'spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin by an airstrike earlier in theday.

　　"The Palestinian leadership condemns the awful attempt to assassinate Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his aides," the PNA said in a statement published by the state-run Palestinian news agency WAFA.The statement said the attempt to assassinate Yassin "is a serious Israeli military escalation to undermine all the efforts that the Palestinian leadership is doing for achieving calmness and renewing the hudna (ceasefire) agreement."

　　It called upon the US administration and other members of the Quartet Committee -- the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, as well as the Arab countries to interfere as immediately as possible "to stop the Israeli crimes of assassinations.""These assassinations are against our people and their leadership, and once it continues, it would destroy the whole peace process as well as the roadmap peace plan, and would blow up stability and security in the region," said the statement.

   Sheikh Yassin escaped earlier Saturday an assassination attempt when he and his aide Isma'eel Haneya were visiting the house of another Hamas leader in Gaza City.

　　Yassin was lightly injured in the shoulder when the apartment in which he was staying was hit by a missile fired by an Israeli F-16war plane. Enditem