About 10,000 people attended the funeral in Tulkarem today of a Palestinian militant killed in an explosion yesterday.
The Palestinian Authority blamed Israel for his death, but Israel said Raed al-Karmi died by one of his own bombs.
About 40 militants in the huge crowd fired assault rifles into the air and vowed revenge for the death of al-Karmi, the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the small town in the northern West Bank.
Mourners carried posters of the 30-year-militant who died in a blast as he was walking in Tulkarem.
Palestinian officials accused Israel of reviving its targeted assassinations of suspected militants, a policy that Israel suspended a month ago in conjunction with a truce appeal by Palestinian President Mr Yasser Arafat.
Israeli Defence Minister Mr Binyamin Ben Eliezer said, however, that Mr Karmi was the victim of a "work accident," Israel's term for the premature explosion of a militant's own bomb.
Mr Eliezer said: "He [Mr Karmi] was about to undertake other attacks in the coming days, and those who believed for moral reasons that one has to wait until dozens of Israelis are killed before reacting are simply wrong".
Israeli combat helicopters had tried to kill Mr Karmi in September. He escaped with minor injuries, although two other militants were killed.
AFP