Leader of Hamas killed

2004-03-22 07:12

Gaza City - Reports say Israeli forces have killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Islamic Hamas movement, in a missile attack in Gaza early on Monday.

Residents say Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at the wheelchair-bound Hamas leader as he left a mosque near his house and Hamas officials and witnesses said he was killed.

"Words cannot describe the emotion of anger and hate inside our hearts," said Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh, a close associate of Yassin.

Masked fighters at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where Yassin's body was taken, shot into the air in rage and Gaza residents rushed into the streets, many of them in tears.

Mosques read passages from the Quran and two Gaza churches rang their church bells.

Previous attempt

Israel had previously tried to kill Yassin in September when a warplane dropped a bomb on a building where he and other Hamas leaders were meeting, but Yassin escaped with just a small wound to his hand. One Israeli official recently said Yassin, a Hamas founder, was "marked for death."

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat condemned the killing.

"Assassinations, incursions, walls, will not produce peace and security, on the contrary, it will just add fuel to the fire," he said.

Yassin was by far the most senior Palestinian militant killed in more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Thousands of angry Palestinians gathered around his minutes after the attack, calling for revenge against Israel.

- AP