Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin outside a Gaza mosque yesterday0, striking its heaviest blow against the militant group behind dozens of suicide bombings and drawing vows of revenge. Israeli security sources said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon personally ordered and monitored the helicopter attack against the paralysed cleric, whose wheelchair lay squashed in a pool of blood after three missiles exploded.

It was the highest-profile assassination of a Palestinian since the April 1988 killing in Tunis of Palestinian commando chief Khalil al-Wazir. At least seven other people died in the Gaza strike and two of Yassin?s sons were among 15 wounded.

The attack on Yassin as he and his entourage left dawn prayers seemed to be aimed at weakening Hamas, a group seeking Israel?s destruction, to prevent it from claiming victory should Sharon go ahead with a planned unilateral pullout from Gaza. After the first missile hit, a witness told Reuters: ?I looked to see where Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was. He was lying on the ground and his wheelchair was destroyed. People there darted left and right. Then another two missiles landed.?

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, speaking to reporters, called Yassin ?the Palestinian (Osama) bin Laden? and said his hands were covered in Israeli blood.

But a dissenting voice in the Israeli cabinet, Interior Minister Avraham Poraz, said Yassin ? Hamas?s spiritual leader ? was not ?a ticking bomb? and voiced concern his death could lead to the loss of many more Israeli lives in suicide attacks.

Officials in the Palestinian Authority called Yassin a moderating force in Hamas, an Islamic movement he co-founded in 1987 with encouragement from Israel, which hoped the new group would undercut its long-time enemy, PLO chief Yasser Arafat.

Countless mourners

In an outpouring of grief, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians marched in a funeral procession for Yassin and the other dead. Eyes burning with tears and rage, mourners reached out to touch Yassin?s Islamic flag-draped coffin.

?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?.

?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. In the first sign of revenge within Israel, a Palestinian with an axe hurt three people outside an army base near Tel Aviv, Israeli police said. He was arrested.

In scenes reminiscent of the start of a Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000, protests erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mosques called an immediate general strike.

Witnesses said Israeli forces killed a gunman in the Gaza Strip and an 11-year-old during a demonstration in the area.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said soldiers shot dead a university student-reporter during an anti-Israeli protest. The army said he was a gunman who fired at the troops.

Previous assassinations of militants have triggered waves of suicide bombings that have turned Israeli buses, restaurants and cafes into charred wrecks and deepened violence that has stalled a US-backed peace ?road map?. As a precaution, the Israeli army sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip to stop any Palestinians entering Israel.

Arafat, the Palestinian president, declared three days of mourning and he and his cabinet stood in a moment of silence at the start of an emergency meeting. Yassin?s movement ran a broad welfare network for Palestinians and he was seen by many in the West Bank and Gaza as a heroic symbol of resistance to Israeli occupation.

?Killers of prophets?

?They are the killers of prophets and today they killed an Islamic symbol,? said Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, now the most prominent face of Hamas. ?It?s a war on Islam... What happened was beyond the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, they wanted to assassinate the Palestinian cause.?

Each side has been trying to bloody the other as much as possible ahead of the possible pullout of the 7,500 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip proposed by Sharon. A senior official of the US State Department urged all sides to remain calm. The United States, which brands Hamas a terrorist group, has been trying with little success to revive the peace road map envisaging a Palestinian state by 2005.

Hamas said it believed Washington, where Sharon hopes to win support for go-it-alone steps Palestinians fear could turn into an Israeli land grab in the West Bank, had given the green light for Yassin?s assassination.

?War, war, war on the sons of Zion. An eye for an eye. There will be a response within hours, God willing,? said a statement from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, part of Arafat?s Fatah faction behind many suicide attacks.

High-profile Israeli assassination</B>