Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat led the condemnation of Israel’s killing of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets of the occupied territories. Declaring the start of three days of official mourning, Arafat and the Palestinian leadership “condemned this fresh Israeli crime, the assassination of Sheikh Yassin and other citizens in front of a mosque in Gaza”. In spite of the “barbaric crime”, the Palestinian people would pursue “the heroic resistance against the occupation and the apartheid wall”, an official statement added in reference to the barrier being built by Israel to cut off the West Bank. Prime minister Ahmed Qorei denounced the air strike which killed Yassin and seven other Palestinians in Gaza City as an “atrocious crime”. Full Story