The Israeli-Palestinian conflict looked on the verge of a major spate of bloodletting as the new leader of the Islamist movement Hamas and the Jewish state declared all-out war on each other.

Hamas firebrand Abdelaziz Rantissi became head of the movement in the Palestinian territories late Tuesday, succeeding the assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and vowing to avenge his death by relentlessly striking Israel.

"We will fight them until the liberation of Palestine, the whole of Palestine," he told thousands of Hamas supporters gathered here to extend their condolences for Yassin.

Rantissi, considered a hardliner within the Islamist group, called on the military wing -- the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades -- to "teach Israel a lesson".

Despite the barrage of international condemnation that followed Monday's assassination of the wheelchair-bound cleric, Israel pledged to pursue the same policy and wipe out the whole leadership of the Islamist movement.

According to Israeli public radio, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz consulted senior security officials and marked Rantissi for death by proclaiming him one of the state's "top strategic enemy".

Israel has been on high alert since Monday, with extra security forces deployed around the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israeli cities, for fear of suicide attacks in retaliation for Yassin's killing.

The US State Department issued a fresh advisory to its citizens in the Middle East, recommending they keep a low profile.

The UN Security Council was also on collision course after the United States and the Palestinians vowed no compromise over Yassin's death, the highest-profile assassination by Israel since the start of the intifada three and half years ago.

The council adjourned in deadlock Tuesday night as the United States insisted it would not accept condemning the killing without reference to Hamas, the group Yassin founded.

But the Palestinians, represented by lone Arab council member Algeria, said they would not agree to any resolution that mentioned Hamas, which has claimed scores of deadly attacks on Israel in recent years.

"He preached hatred and glorified suicide bombings," said the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte. "Yassin was opposed to the existence of the state of Israel and actively sought to undermine a two-state solution."

Rantissi made it clear Tuesday that he would not budge on the party's manifesto, which calls for the creation of an Islamic state covering the whole of historic Palestine and therefore negating the existence of Israel.

Succeeding Yassin makes Rantissi the leader of the so-called "inside" branch of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, while Khaled Meshaal retains his position as the head of the organization's political bureau in Damascus.

Amid rising tension on the border between Israel and Lebanon, violence continued to claim its daily trickle of lives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with the overall tally fast approaching 4,000 since the start of the intifada in September 2000.

Hamas announced that two of its followers had been shot dead by Israeli forces as they tried to launch an attack on a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip late Tuesday.

Israeli military sources said that two Kalashnikov assault rifles and a sack of grenades were found near the bodies of the two who were wearing uniforms.

And in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, an elderly Palestinian died in hospital from the effects of inhaling teargas fired by Israeli forces, medical sources said.

Copyright © 2004 AFP

###