NABLUS, West Bank — Threatening bloody revenge, Islamic militants and supporters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat marched side-by-side Wednesday in the funeral procession for Hamas members killed in an Israeli commando raid, including one of the group's top terror masterminds.
Hamas said it would unleash "all-out war" in retaliation for the killing of four members of its military wing, Izzedine al Qassam. Israel, in turn, said it would respond to a shooting spree by a Palestinian gunman who killed two women and wounded 14 bystanders in downtown Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Israel's new military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, told legislators that Israel must brace for a wave of Palestinian attacks, "worse than what we have experienced so far in Israeli cities," the Yediot Ahronot daily said.
The four Hamas members were killed before dawn Tuesday in an Israeli commando raid on their hideout and explosives lab in the West Bank town of Nablus.
When the Hamas men realized they were surrounded by Israeli forces, they detonated a bomb that inadvertently blew open the door to the apartment, military sources said. The commandos killed the four with handguns equipped with silencers, according to Yediot. Three men were killed in the sleeping quarters and one in the bathroom.
Among the dead was Yousef Soragji, 42, leader of the Hamas military wing in the West Bank and a mastermind of several suicide bombings in Israel.
More than 15,000 people on Wednesday attended the funeral of Soragji and two other men killed in the hideout. "We will not close our eyes until we see your reprisal," the crowd chanted, as gunmen fired in air. The march was led by activists from Hamas and the Al Aqsa Brigades, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement.
Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan, a West Bank army commander, said the explosives lab was the biggest ever uncovered by Israeli forces. Eitan said the commandos found bomb belts, chemicals and a large quantity of weapons "intended for terrorist attacks in the near future."
The gunman in Tuesday's shooting attack in Jerusalem was a member of the Al Aqsa Brigades, which said the shooting came as revenge for last week's killing of a militia leader in an operation attributed to Israel. In the past, the Al Aqsa Brigades had mostly limited their attacks to Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza.
At about 4:10 p.m. Tuesday, the assailant pulled out an M-16 assault rifle hidden by a long coat and began shooting at pedestrians and people waiting at a bus stop. Police patrolling nearby were quick to arrive and exchanged fire with the assailant, chasing him into a parking lot where he was shot dead, police said.
Sixteen people were hit by the gunman during the shooting on a cold, rainy afternoon on busy Jaffa Street in west Jerusalem. Two women later died of their wounds, and another four people were seriously wounded in the shootout, police said, which lasted about 10 minutes.
In the aftermath of the shooting, shopkeepers swept up the remains of shattered shopfront windows, and removed mannequins peppered with bullet holes. A puddle of blood stained the floor of a clothes shop, just a short distance from the site of a deadly suicide bombing attack on Dec. 1. Former President Clinton visited the bombing site on Monday.
Amid mutual threats of retaliation, the speaker of Israel's parliament, Avraham Burg, said he had accepted an invitation to speak before the Palestinian legislature in the West Bank, despite opposition from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"In spite of everything we should try to talk peace," Burg, a member of the center-left Labor party, told Israeli Army Radio. No date was set for Burg's visit to the legislature, based in Ramallah.
Each side has blamed the other for the latest cycle of attack and retaliation, which came after several weeks of relative calm brought on by Arafat's truce declaration Dec. 16.
On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told the Council of Europe in France that Arafat needed to reestablish his leadership within the Palestinian camp before new moves toward peace could be made.
Peres complained that even if Arafat might want to make an opening toward the Israeli government, his support within the Palestinian movement was too fragmented to be effective.
"It is not because of his positions, but because of his composition" that no progress toward peaceful relations is possible, he said. "Arafat must establish his credibility," he said.
Peres told members of Europe's chief human rights body in Strasbourg that "if Arafat will not stop the terror, the terror will stop him."
The Palestinians said Israel triggered the violence with last week's targeted killing of a local militia leader in the West Bank, which was followed by several Palestinian revenge attacks on Israeli civilians.
Palestinian officials have accused Sharon of intentionally provoking Palestinian attacks.
Israel said Arafat was never serious about enforcing a cease-fire.
In recent days, Israel has been stepping up pressure on Arafat, keeping him confined to the West Bank city of Ramallah and surrounding his compound with Israeli tanks.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the Jerusalem attack, carried out by an Arafat supporter, would not go unpunished. "I think we employed only a fraction of our capabilities," Pazner said. "One thing is clear — we are going to defend ourselves."