'Israel will pay high price'

2003-09-06 22:11

Gaza City - The Israeli people and their Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will "pay a high price" for an attempt to assassinate Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the sheikh said on Saturday.

"My message to Sharon is that he will pay a high price," Sheikh Yassin told reporters here.

"He will pay the price for this crime and the Israeli people will pay a high price."

Yassin was speaking to reporters outside a mosque near his home in Gaza where he was given a hero's reception by some 10 000 supporters.

At one stage he was carried on the shoulders of the crowd, witnesses said. Many of the supporters carried portraits of the spiritual leader and chanted anti-Israeli slogans.

Yassin sustained light wounds in his right shoulder in the Israeli air strike in central Gaza. Seventeen other people, most of them women and children were hurt, medics said.

He denied that the Hamas leadership was planning attacks on Israel at the time of the attack. Senior Hamas official Ismail Haniya was also with Yassin but he escaped uninjured.

"If someone is visiting a friend and they (the Israelis) say he is preparing an operation, they have lost their mind," he said. "Their intelligence has lied to them."

- AFP