Hamas militants vow revenge
2004-04-02 19:10
Jabalya - Hamas's military wing pledged during a rally in this northern Gaza Strip refugee camp on Friday to destroy the Israeli parliament in retaliation for the assassination of the Islamist movement's founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
Thousands of Palestinians took part in demonstration dubbed "revenge pledge" in Jabalya camp, 10 days after the helicopter strike that killed Yassin in Gaza City on March 22.
A masked militant shouted through a loudspeaker: "O, our sheik, we pledge to burn the knesset and make it collapse on the heads of these Zionist pigs. When the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades promise something, they deliver."
Other armed members of the group's military wing burned a cardboard model of the Israeli parliament, which sits in Jerusalem, while the crowd chanted slogans calling for suicide attacks in Tel Aviv.
Senior Hamas official Nizar Rayan said: "These protestors came to tell the mujahedin (combatants) that Sheikh Yassin's blood must be avenged and that Israel must pay the price."