GAZA CITY, July 29 (AFP) - The leader of a Palestinian militant faction, wanted for more than a decade by Israel, and his deputy were assassinated Thursday in an air strike on their vehicle in the southern Gaza Strip.
Some 9,000 mourners carried the bodies of Amer Abu Sitteh, 32, head of the Aburish group, and his number two, Zaki Abu Zarqa, through the streets of their hometown of Khan Yunis hours after the pair were killed instantly in the air raid in the nearby town of Rafah.
The Aburish faction is a small armed group which mainly consists of dissidents from the mainstream Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and has its stronghold in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israel had sought Abu Sitteh over the killing of a Jewish settler since 1992 and had made several requests to the Palestinian Authority for his arrest, Palestinian sources added.
The Israeli military confirmed that both men had been the target of "an air raid", adding that Abu Sitteh had been responsible for "dozens" of anti-Israeli attacks over the past decade and had been "planning a `high-quality` terrorist attack in the Gaza Strip."
Several militants who had been recruited by Abu Sitteh, and who were due to be trained by the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, had been recently arrested, it added in a statement.
The mourners, which included dozens of masked gunmen, chanted for revenge attacks against Israel after the strike. The bodies were carried through the streets of Khan Yunis to the local morgue ahead of their burial on Friday.
"Revenge, revenge. Our answer will be in Tel Aviv," the crowds chanted in unison.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs` Brigades, another armed faction loosely linked to Fatah, also issued a statement vowing that "our answer will come as soon as possible."
Israel has assassinated a number of leading Palestinian militants in recent months, including the founder of the Islamist movement Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his successor as Hamas leader, Abdelaziz Rantissi.
The latest deaths brought the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, to 4,205, including 3,208 Palestinians and 926 Israelis, according to an AFP count.