Hamas slaughters 'Barak' sheep at rally

GAZA CITY (Reuters) -- Cheers erupted from thousands of Hamas supporters as a sheep bearing a picture of Israeli leader Ehud Barak was slaughtered Friday at a rally marking the militant Islamic group's founding.

The rally marked the 13th anniversary of the birth of Hamas, which has rejected Israeli-Palestinian peace deals and has carried out a spate of bomb attacks against Israelis in the past.

During the rally, the founder of the organization's military wing, Salah Shehada, vowed to persevere with an armed struggle against Israeli occupation and to resist peace negotiations.

"Our people are not in need of a new compromise. They are in need of a rifle," Shehada, protected by three armed bodyguards, told the crowd.

He was speaking hours after Israel's Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and a top Barak aide met Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on the Gaza-Israel border in the first sign in weeks of movement on deadlocked peace talks.

"Zionists should know that revenge is coming soon. The enemy has opened the door to hell," Shehada told a crowd of more than 30,000 supporters, many waving Palestinian flags.

"This door will not be closed by a visit by Ben-Ami or a visit to the United States or Europe ... Jihad (holy war) is an option of God and we are not asking anybody's permission to continue it," he said.

Hamas activists burned Israeli flags and released into the stadium a donkey decorated with a photograph of the leader of Israel's right-wing Likud party, Ariel Sharon.

A Palestinian uprising against occupation erupted a day after Sharon visited a Jerusalem shrine, holy to Muslims and Jews. It was the main stumbling block at a crucial peace summit in July that ended in disagreement, setting the scene for the unrest.

At least 325 people, most of them Palestinians and 38 of them Israelis have been killed in 11-weeks of the bloodiest Israeli-Palestinian violence in years.

Released last year from jail, where he served 11 years for masterminding attacks against Israeli targets, the comments were Shehada's first public remarks in more than a decade.

"Palestinians should not the only ones killed, Israelis must be buried too," he said.

The Arabic word hamas means enthusiasm, but it is also the acronym for Islamic resistance movement.

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