The Israeli government assasinates the founder of Hamas: Police forces were put on higher alert and their presence in major cities was beefed up Monday. A full closure was imposed on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. All crossings into Israel were closed. In the police's Judea and Samaria district all vacations and leaves were suspended and presence was beefed up around schools, bus stops and roadblocks. Yassin was killed Monday at daybreak, when Israel Air Force helicopters fired missiles at a car carrying the wheelchair-bound head of the radical Islamic group as he left a mosque near his house in Gaza City. Witnesses said Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at Yassin and his bodyguards around 5 A.M. local time as they left the mosque. Yassin was killed instantly and seven bodyguards were also said to have been killed. Seventeen people, including two of Yassin's sons, were said to be wounded in the strike. Within hours, tens of thousands of mourners jammed the streets of Gaza City for the funeral procession of Yassin and the seven others killed in the air strike. Twenty-one Palestinian police officers formed an honor guard as the coffin holding Yassin's mangled body was carried out of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The IDF confirmed that Yassin had been killed in the IAF strike, saying he was directly responsible for dozens of "terrorist attacks."...Prime Minister Ariel Sharon oversaw the entire operation, receiving constant updates from military officials at his Negev ranch. Israeli leaders respond: "This is a difficult struggle that all the countries of the enlightened world must participate in. It is the natural right of the Jewish people, like that of all nations in the world that love life, to hunt down those who rise to destroy it," Sharon said. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz...called Yassin a Palestinian Osama bin Laden who sent hundreds of terrorists and suicide bombers to murder civilians, and said it was Israel's right and duty to protect its citizens. The rest of the political establishment was divided Monday on the assassination of Yassin, with the centrist Shinui and left-wing parties and groups coming out against it and rightist Knesset members and organizations supporting it. Interior Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) warned Monday that many Israelis could pay with their lives for the IDF's assassination of Yassin. "Certainly those who are perpetrating terrorism, preparing a bomb which we know they are about to place somewhere have to be targeted. But Yassin was not a 'ticking bomb'," Poraz told Israel Radio..."I am afraid that Hamas's motivation will increase. [Yassin] will become some sort of martyr... a national hero for them and I'm very sorry to say, this won't prevent Hamas from continuing its activities." ...Peace Now said killing Yassin would "turn all of us into Hamas's hostages. The only way to wipe out Hamas and other terror groups is through a diplomatic agreement." Leader of the left-wing Yahad Party and former justice minister Yossi Beilin criticized the assassination, asking, "How many Israelis will have to pay with their lives for this act?" He said the assassination was a "horrendous mistake that will cost Israel heavily." Beilin said that killing Yassin could spark a new cycle of violence, adding that the policy of targeted assassinations is neither legitimate nor effective. MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash-Ta'al) said in response to the assassination that the Israeli government and its leader had committed a war crime. MK Taleb a-Sana (United Arab List) said it was "a crazy act that sends the entire region into the chaos of bloodshed. The person behind the order is a blood-thirsty criminal."