Salah Shehada was synonymous with the fight against occupation for Palestinian supporters who will consider his death yesterday in an Israeli air strike as "martyrdom" for national independence.
Israel considered the 49-year-old, bearded commander of the military arm of the Islamic movement Hamas, whom it killed along with 14 others in an F-16 strike on a busy Gaza neighbourhood, a "terrorist mastermind" who deserved death.
The Gaza-based Shehada, who had long been at the top of Israel's most wanted list, oversaw scores of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, many within the Jewish state's internationally recognised borders, security sources on both sides say.
"He was one of the heroes of the Palestinian people," said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas political leader in Gaza.
Hamas, the Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a blind, wheelchair-bound cleric, in Gaza 15 years ago.
Yassin dedicated Hamas to driving Israeli troops and Jewish settlers out of Gaza and the West Bank, destroying Israel and establishing an Islamic Palestine covering the entire region.
But on Monday the Hamas leader said it would consider halting suicide attacks on Israelis if Israel withdrew from West Bank cities and took other measures.
An Israeli crackdown disbanded Hamas's mujahideen (freedom fighters) military wing shortly after the group was first established.
In 1989, Shehada, a social worker by training, co-founded the mujahideen's successor group, Izz el-Deen al-Qassam, named after a Palestinian guerrilla leader killed fighting British rule in the West Bank in the 1930s. Though soon to serve an 11-year prison term in Israel, Shehada managed beforehand to craft Hamas operations which initially included deadly kidnappings such as that of Nachshon Wachsman, an Israeli soldier, in 1995.
More recently, Israeli sources said, Shehada ordered an attack on a Jewish settlement on the Gaza Strip which killed five teenage students, and another raid just over the border with Israel in which four Israeli soldiers died. Israel also considered him a guiding force behind attacks emanating from the West Bank, including suicide bombings.
"Shehada consistently refused to limit suicide attacks and other attacks against the Israeli populace, and was one of the most extremist Hamas figures when it came to the fight against Israel," an Israeli security source said.