Deif was 'still alive and leading the military operation', said source close to the Islamist militant group


Thousands of mourners poured on to the streets of Gaza today to bury the wife and baby son of Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif while angrily demanding revenge against Israel and firing shots into the air.

The bodies of 27-year-old Widad and her seven-month-old son Ali were taken from the wife's family home to a mosque in Jabaliya refugee camp for prayers before being laid to rest in the sand of a cemetery.

They were among at least four Palestinians killed in a deadly air strike on Gaza City late yesterday.

A grim procession: A grandfather in Gaza carries the body of infant Ali Deif, whose father is Hama's military leader Mohammed Deif

Casualties of war: Almost like a christening, the grandfather carries the baby toward his grave after he was killed along with his mother Widad Mustafa Deif, 27, in Israeli strikes in Gaza City late Tuesday



A source close to the Islamist militant movement told AFP news agency that Deif was alive and still calling the shots in the ongoing war with Israel in and around Gaza.

'The head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades Abu Khaled is still alive and leading the military operation,' the source said, using Deif's nom-de-guerre.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Israelis would not be safe until Deif 'decides so.'

Earlier, Israel justified the air strikes by saying that Deif was a legitimate terror target 'just like Osama bin Laden.'



At the funeral, mourners stooped down to kiss the body of Ali, who was then placed on top of his mother inside the mosque.

Laid to rest: Palestinians bury the bodies of the boy and his mother. Earlier, Israel justified the air strikes by saying that Deif was a legitimate terror target 'just like Osama bin Laden'

Young mourners: Palestinian children mourn during the burial of the infant son of Mohammed Deif at a cemetery in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip

Relatives of the wife of Hamas's military leader, Mohammed Deif, and his infant son Ali gather at the boy's final rites. Israeli air strikes killed 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including the wife and infant son of Deif, in what the group said was an attempt to assassinate him after a ceasefire collapsed

Ruins: The ruins of the abandoned terminals of the Gaza International Airport. Opened to much fanfare in 1998, the radar station and control tower were destroyed by Israeli aircraft in 2001 after the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada

Wrapped in green Hamas flags, they were then carried to the cemetery, along with the flag-wrapped bodies of two men killed in an air strike Wednesday on a motorcycle, both presumed Hamas militants.



'Revenge, revenge, revenge!' shouted the crowd as they waved Hamas flags and denounced the killing of the second wife and infant son of Deif, head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.



'We ask Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades to avenge this killing, this massacre,' said a 22-year-old mourner who gave his name as Mohammed.



Horrific: The body of seven-month-old Ali Deif, the son of Hamas's military commander Mohammed Deif, is carried by relatives into his funeral in the northern Gaza Strip

Grief-stricken, Widad's father Mustafa Harb Asfura carried his tiny grandson into the mosque and to the cemetery, his body wrapped in a white sheet exposing his white face with an injury to the eye. 'I'm like all the other people in the Gaza Strip. I am no different from the others who have lost children. This is like a tsunami,' said the angry 56-year-old. When his university-educated daughter married Deif seven years ago, her father feared it was a death sentence. 'My daughter knew she would die a martyr when she decided to marry Mohammed Deif. Every moment since then I've been expecting to hear that she has died,' he said. Asfura said he had only seen his son-in-law once, when the couple married. After that, he didn't even know where his daughter was living, such is the secrecy that surrounds Deif in his determination to avoid detection by Israel.



Obliterated: Palestinians inspect the rubble of a house which witnesses said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip Palestinians sift through the rubble of a the Al-Dalow family's house in the Al-Sheikh redwan area in Gaza City after Israeli airstrikes killed at least 11 Gazans Despair: Three Palestinian men sit next to a destroyed bus and houses after they was targeted by Israeli airstrikes Distressed: A Palestinian gestures as he stands in front of a damaged building following Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip Widad and Deif had two daughters and a son together. She also had two sons from a first marriage, the family said. It was not clear where the couple's two girls were at the time of the strike. The bodies of a 48-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy were also pulled from the rubble. Hundreds of people crowded into the mosque for the funeral prayers but there was no sign of any officials of the Islamist movement Hamas which controls Gaza. A small group of women also entered the mosque to attend the prayers. Wearing black abayas, they stayed in a separate room, sobbing in grief. Addressing the mourners, a young man passed on the condolences of the Qassam Brigades and prayers were read for the two men who died when a rocket hit their motorcycle in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

Dragged to safety: Rescue workers dig out a man from the ruins of an Israeli air strike last night

A rocket fired by Palestinian militants inside the Gaza strip rises into the night sky - one of more than 50 fired once the ceasefire was shattered

Smoke signals: Smoke is seen after what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike in Gaza City today. Israel launched attacks in the Gaza Strip and recalled its negotiators from truce talks in Cairo after saying three Palestinian rockets had hit southern Israel, hours before a ceasefire was due to expire

Blast: Israel immediately ordered a military response, with warplanes striking targets across the battered Gaza Strip

End to talks: An Israeli official confirmed the negotiating team had been ordered back from Cairo where Egypt has been pushing for a decisive end to the Gaza bloodshed Casualties: Two boys aged six and nine were moderately wounded in the southern city of Rafah, the Palestinian emergency services spokesman said Thwarted: The aim of the talks in Egypt was to broker a long-term arrangement to halt more than a month of bloody fighting, although both sides had largely silenced their guns since August 11 thanks to a series of temporary truces Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel have also been killed in the most deadly and destructive war Hamas and Israel have fought since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, before Hamas seized the territory in 2007. Palestinian negotiators walked out of the talks in Cairo, blaming Israel for their failure. 'Israel thwarted the contacts that could have brought peace,' chief Palestinian negotiator Azzam al-Ahmed said. Rejecting the charge, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Gaza rocket fire 'made continuation of talks impossible'. 'The Cairo process was built on a total and complete cessation of all hostilities and so when rockets were fired from Gaza, not only was it a clear violation of the ceasefire but it also destroyed the premise upon which the talks were based,' Regev told Reuters. Israel instructed its civilians to open bomb shelters as far as 80 km (50 miles) from Gaza, or beyond the Tel Aviv area, and the military called up 2,000 reservists .



Search: Palestinian rescuers search for victims in a sea of rubble after buildings were destroyed int he latest round of attacks