Spiritual leader who inspired the suicide bombers

THEY said they would kill him - and this morning, as he left a mosque near his home in a rundown part of Gaza, they did. Ever since last summer, when Israel vowed to hunt down and kill all the leaders of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin has been a marked man.

As Ze'ev Boim, Israel's deputy defence minister, said earlier this year: "Sheikh Yassin is marked for death, and he should hide himself deep underground where he won't know the difference between day and night."

Sheikh Yassin did not hide himself, however - not even when the Israelis tried blowing him up with a 250kg laser-guided bomb from an F-16 aircraft last September. He carried on living in the same house in the Sabra area of the city, following the same routines.

Outside his home the words "Sheikh Ahmed Yassin" were written in Arabic letters a foot high.

For someone who prompted hatred and devotion in equal measure, Sheikh Yassin cut an unimpressive-looking figure. Confined to a wheelchair as a result of a childhood accident, he was frail and could hardly see. When he spoke his voice was squeaky and almost inaudible.

As founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, however, he was the figurehead who could inspire his fanatical young followers to strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves to small pieces in the name of Palestinian freedom. He, too, did not seem to fear death. He said last year: "If they kill Ahmed Yassin another 100 Ahmed Yassins will grow up.

"He [Ariel Sharon] must know that our desire is martyrdom, the day we become martyrs is a wedding day for us. We are not afraid of their threats and when we get killed it is the happiest day of our lives."

Sheikh Yassin always distinguished himself from the military leaders of Hamas, which has both a political and a military wing, insisting he had no role in the planning of suicide bombings. He was a spiritual leader, he said - but one who inspired sacrificial devotion among his followers.

His own radical views had their roots in the Palestine of his youth. Born in 1938 when it was under British mandate, it was a time of humiliation and defeat for Palestinians. His family had to flee their village of Majdel when Israel was created in 1948, and he spent his youth in a Gaza refugee camp.

He became a devout Muslim, and went to study the Koran in Egypt where he formed the belief that Palestine was an Islamic land "consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day" - and that no Arab leader had the right to give any of it up. Sheikh Yassin's message was simple, and one from which he never wavered: "I just want my house back." He did not come to prominence until the first Palestinian intifada of 1987, when he launched the Islamic Resistance Movement, whose acronym, Hamas, means "zeal".

In 1989 he was jailed for life for ordering the killing of Palestinians who had allegedly collaborated with the Israeli army. Eight years later he was released by the Israelis as part of the humiliating exchange of prisoners.

During his time in prison his popularity as a symbol of Palestinian resistance grew, and when Palestinian police, under the orders of Yasser Arafat, tried to place him under house arrest a riot by his supporters forced them to retreat under a hail of stones. He remained uncompromising on the question of peace, and attacked the outcome of last year's Aqaba summit in Jordan, attended by the Israeli and US leaders as well as the-then Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, who pledged an end to violence.

While Hamas did declare a temporary truce, that came to an end last July.

After September's assassination attempt Sheikh Yassin told an angry crowd: "The Israeli people will pay a price for this crime." Hamas may have lost its spiritual leader, but today the calls for vengeance will be louder than ever.