Israel kills Hamas leader

Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin yesterday, striking its heaviest blow against the Palestinian Islamic militant group behind dozens of suicide bombings and provoking vows of massive revenge.

About 200,000 mourners poured out their grief in a funeral procession, vowing to hit back at the Jewish state.

Israeli security sources said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered and monitored the helicopter attack on the paralysed cleric, whose wheelchair lay smashed in a pool of blood after three missiles exploded outside a Gaza mosque.

Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction, has killed hundreds of people in a decade of suicide attacks. But previous assassinations have triggered more bombings and deepened violence that has stalled US-backed peace moves.

Some Israelis, including a member of Mr Sharon's cabinet, Arab leaders and many Middle East political analysts, said his death would only incite militants to more violence.

The White House said it was "deeply troubled" by the events in Gaza, but did not outright condemn the assassination, which was Israel's biggest since the April 1988 killing in Tunis of Palestinian commando chief Abu Jihad.

At least seven other people were killed in the Gaza strike and two of Yassin's sons were among the 15 wounded.

The attack as Yassin and his entourage left dawn prayers may have been aimed at weakening Hamas to prevent it claiming victory if Mr Sharon goes ahead with a planned pullout from Gaza.

For many years Israel held back from killing Yassin, 67, though he escaped an assassination attempt last September.

"The state of Israel this morning hit the first and foremost leader of the Palestinian terrorist murderers," Mr Sharon said.

Mr Sharon has ruled out peace talks with the Palestinians until attacks on Israelis stop. He has threatened to draw a West Bank "security line" that would leave them with less land than they seek for a state should the road map remain stalled.

"It is a clear message to the world that the Israelis are not ready to sit with the Palestinians for peace," Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie told reporters after the killing, which he said "opened the door to chaos".

Israel stepped up strikes against militants after suicide bombers killed 10 people at the port of Ashdod last week.

The funeral procession for Yassin and the other dead was the biggest show of support for a Palestinian leader since Yasser Arafat's triumphant entry into the Gaza Strip in 1994.

"(Mr) Sharon, start preparing your body bags because (Hamas's) Qassam Brigades will put Israeli houses in mourning and make a funeral in every Israeli street," the crowd chanted.

Eyes filled with tears and rage, mourners reached to touch Yassin's Islamic flag-draped coffin. The flags of other Palestinian groups fluttered in the wind in the dusty cemetery.

Several homemade rockets roared out of Gaza towards Israeli targets and Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks returned fire. No casualties were reported.

A Palestinian wounded three Israelis with an axe near Tel Aviv. Police, put on alert around Israel, said an Arab stabbed three passengers on a bus in Jaffa before fleeing.

Protests erupted in the West Bank and Gaza and Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, including an 11-year-old and at least one gunman.

Washington denied Hamas accusations it had given Israel the green light to kill Yassin and appealed for regional calm.

Asked if Mr Sharon had called President George W. Bush directly to tell him Israel planned the killing, US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said: "He did not."

"We are deeply troubled by this morning's actions in Gaza," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, though did not condemn Yassin's killing when pressed by reporters, and repeated Washington's policy that Hamas was a "terrorist" organisation.

"Israel has the right to defend itself," White House National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The European Union criticised the "extrajudicial killing" but also recalled past EU condemnations of suicide bombings.

A witness said a missile destroyed Yassin's wheelchair and the Hamas leader lay on the ground. "People there darted left and right. Then another two missiles landed," the witness added.

Yassin's son Mohammed, who was unhurt, told Reuters he had remarked to his father about three hours before the attack about an Israeli reconnaissance plane spotted in the sky.

"He said: 'We seek martyrdom... to Him (God) we belong and to Him we return'."

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, speaking to reporters, called Yassin "the Palestinian (Osama) bin Laden". But Interior Minister Avraham Poraz said Yassin was not "a ticking bomb" and revenge could cost many Israeli lives.

Lebanese Hizbollah guerillas attacked Israeli posts, drawing an air strike, after saying Israel would pay heavily.

An Islamist website published a statement purporting to come from an al Qaeda-linked group, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, vowing revenge on the United States and its allies.

Palestinian Authority officials called Yassin a moderating force in Hamas, an Islamic movement he co-founded in 1987.

Israel's actions spooked markets. US and European stocks fell along with the dollar on worries of more violence and possible revenge by militants in the Middle East and abroad.