To be sure, various Palestinian factions have stepped up their internal struggles to gain ground here and in the West Bank, given the near-collapse of the Palestinian Authority's ability to govern or maintain security. But many Palestinians say Yassin was quickly passing out of his position as the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas - whose name in Arabic stands for Islamic Resistance Movement - and into a role as an revered icon of the entire Palestinian people.

"People loved him much more than they loved Arafat," says Abed Nasser, a clean-shaven Palestinian who, in better times, worked as a laborer in Israel and never considered himself a Hamas supporter. "People are angry and crying. By tonight or tomorrow, there will be big operations against the Israelis because we will have to give them the same."

Yassin was born in 1938 under what was then mandatory Palestine. He was made a quadriplegic after an accident in childhood, and devoted his early adult years to Islamic studies. He studied at al Azhar University in Cairo, and later returned to his homeland as a believer in the concept that all of Palestine was a holy Muslim inheritance which could not be forfeited.

The sheikh, who established Hamas at the start of the first Palestinian intifada in 1987, was originally seen by Israel as a potentially welcome antidote to the lure of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. In 1993, at the signing of the Oslo Accords, it became apparent Mr. Arafat's faction of the PLO was prepared to embrace the idea of territorial compromise, while Hamas rejected the concept. The sheikh started out as something of a radical fringe leader but became increasingly popular as the peace process broke down.

He was arrested by Israelis in 1989 and sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the killing of Palestinians who had allegedly collaborated with the Israeli army. He was released in 1997 in exchange for two agents from Israel's Mossad spy agency. Then in September last year, Israel tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him.