The right-hand man of former Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo was murdered overnight by an intruder who shot him as he slept, Palestinian security sources said on Monday. Samir Rantissi, 43, died after being shot several times by a solitary gunman who slipped into his home in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said the sources. The murder was probably not politically motivated, the sources said. A journalist and engineer by training, Rantissi was perhaps best known for his efforts in the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial peace plan drawn up by Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals and politicians in November 2003. Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has vowed to end the rampant lawlessness that has dogged the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip during the more than four years of the Palestinian uprising.