Palestinian militants vowed Friday to avenge Israel's assassination of the 
Hamas government's top security chief in an attack that threatened to ignite 
large-scale violence between the two sides. 
 
 
 ![Palestinians carry the body of the Hamas government's security chief and leader of the Popular Resistence Committees, Jamal Abu Samhadana, 45, after he was killed by an Israeli airstrike late Thursday June 8, 2006. An Israeli air strike Thursday killed Samhadana, members of the group and Palestinian hospital officials said. Abu Samhadana was a key player in rocket attacks on Israel and a suspect in the fatal 2003 bombing of a U.S. convoy in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military confirmed striking the Popular Resistance Committees camp in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, saying militants there were planning a large-scale attack on Israel. Three other people were killed and 10 were wounded by the four missiles fired at the training camp.[AP]](xin_5506030919114012960932.jpg)  Palestinians carry the body of the Hamas 
 government's security chief and leader of the Popular Resistence 
 Committees, Jamal Abu Samhadana, 45, after he was killed by an Israeli 
 airstrike late Thursday June 8, 2006. [AP] | 
 
 
 
The security chief, Jamal Abu Samhadana, was a key player in Palestinian 
rocket attacks against Israel and a close ally of the Hamas militants who now 
govern the Palestinian Authority and have refused to renounce their commitment 
to Israel's destruction. 
Hours after his death Thursday night, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired 
two rockets into Israel, hitting a building in the southern town of Sderot, but 
causing no casualties, the military said. No one claimed responsibility. 
Abu Samhadana's appointment as Hamas' top enforcer not only angered Israel 
but helped set the stage for recent Palestinian infighting that has killed 16 
people. The conflict has raised the specter of all-out civil war between Hamas 
and the Fatah movement the Islamic militants unseated in January parliamentary 
elections. 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who is eager to restart 
long-stalled peace talks with Israel, was expected on Saturday to announce a 
date in late July for a national referendum on establishing a Palestinian state 
alongside Israel. 
Hamas government officials called Abu Samhadana's killing a direct assault on 
the Palestinian Authority, and vowed to continue its resistance against the 
Jewish state. Abu Samhadana's Popular Resistance Committees faction vowed 
revenge. 
"God willing, our retaliation shall come," blared a loudspeaker on a car 
carrying Abu Sharif, a top PRC commander, as it toured Gaza streets shortly 
after Israel's airstrike. 
"It will not be by statements, but by rockets toward Sderot and all the 
Zionist community. It will be by self-sacrificing martyrs who will blow up 
themselves in every corner." 
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Friday that security officials 
were aware of threats of revenge and were taking general precautions. He did not 
elaborate. 
The Israeli military said it struck a PRC training camp in the southern Gaza 
town of Rafah because militants there were planning a large-scale attack on 
Israel. It would not confirm or deny that Abu Samhadana, the No. 2 man on 
Israel's wanted list, had been the target. 
Abu Samhadana, 43, was an explosives expert and a suspect in the fatal 2003 
bombing of a U.S. convoy in the Gaza Strip. He said Israel targeted him five 
years ago in an explosion that left his right arm burned and mangled. 
He and other militants had been about to enter the training camp in the 
former Jewish settlement of Rafiah Yam when the four missiles struck, killing 
him and three other militants, and wounding 10. 
Palestinian factions, including Fatah, condemned his killing, and said it 
would only fuel attacks on Israel. 
Ghazi Hamad, a government spokesman, said Israel's targeting of a key 
government figure raised the likelihood of "dangerous consequences and 
developments." 
Since Hamas was elected to power in January, it has not been directly 
involved in attacks against Israel, but it does back other factions' operations. 
Hamas is thought to help finance the PRC, and an estimated 500 people belong 
simultaneously to both groups. 
Over the past week, Hamas members have cooperated with the smaller group in 
firing rockets at Israel, though Israel has said Hamas leaders did not dispatch 
them. 
Thousands of mourners, shouting "Revenge, revenge," marched to the morgue 
where Abu Samhadana lay. His body was bundled onto a stretcher, hoisted over the 
crowd's shoulders, and paraded around the hospital compound before being 
returned to the morgue ahead of Friday's funeral. 
One weeping Popular Resistance fighter compared Abu Samhadana's assassination 
to the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida in Iraq leader, by U.S. 
forces on Wednesday. 
"This is a big blow to Islam and the holy warriors," said the man, who 
refused to identify himself. "We hope that God will send us more heroes." 
Reaction to Abu Samhadana's death swept through the Rafah refugee camp where 
he had lived, bringing out nearly all its thousands of residents. 
"I feel humbled because men like him gave their lives as a price for their 
beliefs, and to defend us," said Ibrahim Atwan, 45. His wife, Iman, said she 
hoped one of her children would "follow in his footsteps." 
Abu Samhadana had moved stealthily, switching cars and hideouts. A few days 
before his death, he told The Associated Press in a back alley interview that 
the U.S. government and its people would "pay a dear price" for leading bruising 
economic sanctions against the Palestinian Authority. 
The U.S. and other Western countries imposed the sanctions because of Hamas' 
refusal to disarm militants and recognize Israel. 
"We are happy when any American soldier is killed anywhere in the world, 
because the American Army is an aggressor against all the people in the world, 
particularly the Arab and Muslim worlds," he said. "The American people are 
known to be peaceful, so they are asked to move to bring down this terrorist 
government in Washington." 
He said he had taken security measures against an Israeli attack, adding with 
bravado, "They don't catch me. I hunt them." 
Abu Samhadana graduated from a military school in communist East Germany in 
1988. He was loyal to Yasser Arafat for many years, but was later expelled from 
Arafat's group Fatah. 
He formed the PRC with militants from various factions after the latest 
Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000.