Thousands attend Hamas bomb-maker funeral, vow to commit suicide attacks

NABLUS, WEST BANK, NOV 24: Some 10,000 Palestinians, including 10 militants strapped with dummy explosives thronged the streets of the Wes...

NABLUS, WEST BANK, NOV 24: Some 10,000 Palestinians, including 10 militants strapped with dummy explosives thronged the streets of the West Bank city of Nablus on Friday in a funeral procession for a Hamas bomb-maker who died in a mysterious explosion on Thursday.

Ibrahim Beni Ouda, 34, died on Thursday when a bomb exploded in his car in Nablus, in an incident Hamas and Palestinian officials blamed on Israel. Ten masked men dressed head to toe in white carried Ouda’s body through the streets, their bodies strapped with dummy explosives in a sign that they were prepared to carry out suicide attacks against Israel to avenge his death. In Islam, the dead are traditionally buried in white shrouds.

"Revenge, Revenge, Oh Ezzedin al-Qassam take revenge," shouted the demonstrators, referring to the armed wing of Hamas, of which Ouda was a leader. Nablus governor Mahmoud Al-Aloul had said a preliminary Palestinian investigation indicated that Israel had planted the bomb in Ouda’s car in order to assassinate him. The Israeli Army has denied involvement.

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Officials from Hamas, which is violently opposed to Israel, said Ouda was released from a Nablus jail on Wednesday along with seven other Hamas activists for a temporary holiday because prison officials feared the prison would be bombed by Israel. Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, swore to avenge the death. "The blood of our heroic martyr and that of all the martyrs of al-Aqsa will be a fire that will burn the oppressors," Hamas said in a statement issued in Gaza City. Hamas rallies were also due to be held in the Gaza Strip and West Bank on Friday, which the movement has declared a standing "day of rage."

The Palestinian newspaper al-Quds reported that the al-Qassam Brigades said it was behind the rush-hour blast near a bus in the Israeli town of Hadera on Monday that left two Israelis dead and more than 50 wounded. A previously unknown group calling itself the Islamic Revolution to Liberate Palestine, as well as the Group of National Islamic Resistance claimed responsibility. Ezzedin al-Qassam warned on Wednesday, in its first statement in months, that Israel "would open the gate of hell" if it tried to kill any Palestinian Islamic or nationalist leader. Hamas’s armed wing has been responsible for numerous anti-Israeli attacks, including a string of suicide bus bombings, since the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords in 1993.