Gaza hospitals report crop of babies named Ahmed Yassin

GAZA - "Sheikh Ahmed Yassin did not die. He was just born," Ghada al-Khudari said on Tuesday, holding her newborn son named after the Hamas militant leader assassinated in an Israeli air strike that shook Palestinian society.

Israel branded Yassin an "arch-terrorist" for heading a movement sworn to destroying the Jewish state and responsible for suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis.

To many Palestinians the frail cleric symbolised resistance to Israel's grip on occupied territories and hospitals reported a flurry of newborn Ahmed Yassins after his assassination on Monday.

"We were angry at the news of Sheikh Yassin's death. We were happy when Ahmed Yassin was born, he is my first baby boy," Khudari, in her 20s, told Reuters in her modest Gaza City apartment.

Hospital officials said they knew of at least five other infants named after Yassin in the first few hours following his death.

The Hamas leader was killed along with two bodyguards and five others in his entourage as they left dawn prayers in a Gaza City mosque. His assassination prompted the biggest public funeral in Gazans' memory.

Ghada's husband, Khaled, said he had no connection with Hamas but he admired the movement's spiritual leader and co-founder for having been his school teacher in the 1980s.

"They killed Ahmed Yassin, the sheikh, but they failed to block the will of God. Ahmed Yassin has been reborn in Gaza," he said.

Khaled said Israel was mistaken if it thought killing Yassin would ruin Hamas, which has wide support among the large number of poor and young in Gaza.

"They do not appreciate that if one Yassin is killed, a thousand more will be born," said Khaled who is unemployed like over 50 percent of Palestinians in Gaza.

Hamas spokesmen vowed "to bring death into every Israeli house" in revenge for the assassination of the most prominent Palestinian since Yasser Arafat's commando chief in 1988.

Cities and towns throughout Gaza and the West observed a second day of public mourning for Yassin, with businesses and schools remaining closed.

Funeral wakes for Yassin and the other dead were held at various Gaza cities where thousands came to pay tribute, some recalling their celebrations when Yassin was released from an Israeli jail in 1997.

"Seven years ago we said welcome and today we say farewell," said Hamas member Ibrahim Abu Omar.

The Khudaris said that if "God offers us another son we will name him Salah Shehada", the Hamas armed wing commander killed when an Israeli warplane dropped a huge bomb on his Gaza City apartment block in 2002. The strike also killed 15 others.

"Our Ahmed Yassin will be brought up in the sheikh's footsteps," grandmother Alya said while handing out sweets and orange juice to friends who came by to give congratulations.

- REUTERS