MIDDLE EAST: Hamas vowed yesterday to hit back hard for Israel's assassination of the "Father of the Qassam" rocket, a weapon symbolising Palestinian militants' defiance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his plan to quit Gaza.
Israel killed Adnan al-Ghoul, number two in Hamas's military wing, just days before the Israeli parliament is to hold a vote on Mr Sharon's proposal to remove all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four of the 120 in the West Bank.
The assassination of the master bomb-maker and his aide, Imad Abbas, in a missile strike on their car in Gaza on Thursday could help Mr Sharon counter far-right opponents who say the withdrawal would reward and encourage Palestinian attacks.
"We will avenge the blood of hero-leaders Ghoul and Abbas by attacking the depths of the Zionist entity," a Hamas activist vowed at a funeral attended by some 30,000 supporters of the fundamentalist Islamic group.
Israeli military experts said the loss of Ghoul, who helped design and fine-tune makeshift Qassams which have rained down on southern Israel and Gaza settlements in attacks that have drawn punishing tank and infantry raids, was a major blow to Hamas.
The movement, dedicated to Israel's destruction, has been shaken by a series of Israeli assassinations of its top leaders, including co-founder Ahmed Yassin in Gaza last March.
The army confirmed it targeted Ghoul (45), the "ace of hearts" in one Israeli newspaper's deck of cards of Palestinians on Israel's most-wanted list, and said he was responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.
Ghoul had survived several previous assassination attempts, including one to kill him with a poisoned cup of coffee. He lost two sons in earlier Israeli attacks.
Hamas's armed wing fired off salvoes of rockets and mortar bombs at Israeli targets in Gaza in a reaction to his death. No Israeli casualties were reported.
Hamas said one of its men was killed during a mortar-bomb attack against the Neve Dekalim settlement. Witnesses said one of the weapons exploded on launch.
Later, a Palestinian at the militant's funeral in Khan Younis, adjacent to Neve Dekalim, was killed by Israeli gunfire, witnesses said.
Ismail Haniyah, a senior Hamas leader, made a rare public appearance at the burial of Ghoul and Abbas and said Israelis "should not delude themselves into thinking the resistance will be harmed" by the bomb-maker's assassination.
"The coming days will prove that Hamas will remain loyal to the blood of the martyrs and will continue its resistance until the removal of the occupation and the return of all rights," he said.
Mr Sharon has vowed to carry out a unilateral withdrawal of Gaza's 8,000 settlers and several hundred of the 230,000 in the West Bank by the end of next year. Palestinians believe the plan for Israel's first evacuation of settlements since it returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982 is a ruse by Mr Sharon to retain West Bank land.
Polls suggest most Israelis favour giving up the Gaza settlements. Political commentators predicted Mr Sharon would win the parliamentary vote scheduled for Tuesday, with the support of the main opposition Labour Party to counter opposition by rebels in his Likud faction.