According to early reports from the scene of the murder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the 67-year old quadriplegic spiritual leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas, was killed by an hellfire missile fired from an American-made attack helicopter, despatched to its fateful destination by none other than the leader of Israel Ariel Sharon.

Hellfire indeed, Mr Sharon for the retribution that is sure to come can only be described in mythic, biblical terms. If the Zionist regime currently installed in Tel Aviv believed that it could end the nightmare existence of ordinary Israelis bound as they are by the politics of their own government that has pursued a hateful agenda towards the Palestinian people via such force of arms, they ought to think again, for as the enraged members of Hamas have proclaimed: "Your nightmare is just beginning".

Analysts have asked the most obvious question: Why kill Sheikh Ahmed, who was widely seen as a moderate and who was prepared to make some concessions on the question of Israel's borders as they were set in 1967? And the killing of Sheikh Ahmed follows in the cowardly killing of yet another Hamas moderate, Ismail Abu Shanab, who was thought to be the one most likely to work towards a settled compromise.