Palestinian militant faction leader killed in Israeli airstrike

(AP) A top Hamas enforcer in Gaza accused of spearheading rocket attacks against Israel died in an Israeli airstrike Thursday, Palestinian hospital officials and group members said.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike against the Popular Resistance Committees training camp in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, saying militants there were planning a large-scale attack on Israel.

It said "the camp was the target" when asked if Abu Samhadana, the No. 2 man on Israel's wanted list, had been the target.

His body was incinerated but his face was recognizable, hospital officials said.

Three other people were killed and 10 were wounded by the four missiles fired at the training camp. The attack knocked out electricity in the area, hampering rescue efforts and attempts to ascertain casualties, police said.

Earlier in the day, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the leader on Saturday will announce that a national referendum will be held likely on July 31 on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Opinion polls show broad public support for the proposal, which would implicitly recognize Israel. Still, across Gaza on Thursday, thousands vowed to boycott the planned vote.

"We are not going to recognize Israel, and we are not going to lay down our weapons," chanted some of the 4,000 referendum opponents from Hamas and two smaller Palestinian militant groups at the Palestinian parliament in Gaza City.

Abu Samhadana, leader of the small Popular Resistance Committees faction, 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 that left three American guard dead.

His recent appointment as director general of the Hamas-led Interior Ministry infuriated both Israel and Hamas' Fatah rivals, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It also set the stage for recent Hamas-Fatah violence that has killed 10 people and raised the specter of all-out civil war.

Abu Samhadana, a 43-year-old explosives expert, had been a key target for Israel, moving stealthily and switching cars and hideouts.

He and other militants had been about to enter the training camp in the former Jewish settlement of Rafiah Yam when the missiles struck. In the darkness, illuminated only by flashlights, a small pool of blood could be seen staining the ground, and people lifted pieces of flesh to bury them with him.

"This is a criminal assasination and Palestinians have the right to respond to this ugly crime by all means," said Khaled Abu Hilal, an Interior Ministry spokesman. "Abu Samhadana paid with his life for the freedom and dignity of his people."

A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees vowed revenge for the missile strike.

"The Zionists and Israelis have opened the gates of hell by assassinating Abu Samhadana," spokesman Abu Abir said.

Reaction to his death swept through the Rafah refugee camp where Abu Samhadana had lived. Thousands of residents packed the streets, some streaming to the hospital, some standing outside their homes, or on balconies.

A neighbor, Ibrahim Atwan, 45, said Abu Samhadana's death "a big loss for all Palestinians."

"He used to tell us as neighbors that his wish was to be killed and to receive the honor of martyrdom, and he got it."

His wife, Iman, said she hoped that "one of my children will follow in his footsteps."

Many hundreds of mourners, shouting "revenge, revenge," marched to the morgue where his body lay. His scorched body was bundled onto a stretcher, hoisted over the crowd's shoulders, and paraded around the hospital compound.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, he railed against the U.S. government, saying he's happy whenever American soldiers are killed and vowed not to take Hamas' 3,000-strong militia off the streets.

The U.S. and Israeli-led boycott of the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority is "cheap extortion" that only serves "to make our people more attached to the government," he said in the interview, held at a clandestine location chosen by his group.

Abu Samhadana graduated from a military school in then-communist East Germany in 1988. He formed the Popular Resistance Committees, a violent group consisting of militants from various factions, after the latest Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000.