Tens of thousands of angry Palestinian men, women and children thronged the dusty streets of the Gaza Strip yesterday for a huge funeral procession for the Hamas leader and his two bodyguards killed in a targeted attack by Israeli helicopter gunships on Saturday.
Dr Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi (56) was the second leader of Hamas in Gaza to be killed by the Israelis within a month. His predecessor, the ailing cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (68), was killed by a missile outside a Gaza City mosque on March 22nd.
Mourners gathered from early morning at Gaza's central Shifa Hospital to pay last respects to the city's latest "martyrs", with children bending over Dr Rantissi's shrouded body to kiss his shrapnel-scarred face.
Shops and schools were closed in the Gaza Strip yesterday and Hamas declared a state of emergency both there and in the West Bank until revenge was complete, posting a statement on its website pledging "100 retaliations" that would shake Israel.
The air was thick with the black smoke from burning tyres - a public sign of Palestinian anger. Israeli jets roared overhead as the procession made its way to the cemetery.
Mourners waved large flags in vibrant Hamas green as the open coffins were carried through the streets, punching the air and chanting "revenge, revenge" and "Allahu Akbar" - God is great.
Hamas is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist organisation.
The assassination of Dr Rantissi in the attack near his home on Saturday evening is part of Israel's declared campaign to wipe out Hamas's leadership ahead of its planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a few West Bank settlements.
Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, told more than 70,000 mourners gathered at the city's largest mosque for the funeral that Israel was dreaming when it said it had killed Dr Rantissi to weaken Hamas. "Every time a martyr falls, Hamas is strengthened," he said. "Hamas might have a crisis at hand after losing its leaders, but it will not be defeated."
Faced with Israel's continuing threat to wipe out all its leaders, Hamas yesterday said it had named Dr Rantissi's successor but would keep his identity secret.
When he assumed the leadership of Hamas in Gaza last month in the wake of Sheikh Yassin's death, Dr Rantissi understood perfectly well that he was a marked man. He had escaped an Israeli assassination attempt last June in which two bystanders were killed, a woman and an eight-year-old girl.
"We will all die one day. Nothing will change. If by Apache [US attack helicopter] or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache," the Egyptian-trained paediatrician said at that time.
Dr Rantissi, widely viewed as more hardline than his predecessor, was interred yesterday in a shallow grave on the sandy slopes of the Sheikh Radwan graveyard, close to his family home in Gaza City. His freshly dug plot was only a few feet from the modest marble grave of Sheikh Yassin.