"We are very sad about what happened to Baghdad and the Iraqi people, but we expected it given the power of Iraq compared to the superpower of the United States," Hamas political leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi told AFP here.

"We hope in future Iraq will change to Islam (from the socialist Baath party of Saddam Hussein) and there will be an intifada of all the Iraqi and Gulf people against American Zionism. We greatly regret what happened to our brother people.

"Yes, we are afraid. The Jews will destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque (Islam's third holiest site in Jerusalem) and commit major massacres against the Palestinian people, but our resistance will escalate," he said.

And Mohammed al-Hindi of the smaller, but just as hardline, Islamic Jihad said he expected the evolving situation in Iraq to resemble the Israeli move into Beirut in 1982.

"It will be like Beirut in 1982. In the end the popular resistance will win," he said. Israeli forces stayed in Lebanon for 18 years before pulling out in May 2000 after years of attacks by the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, which the Jewish state says is backed by Syria and Iran.

"Israel will use what is happening in Iraq to escalate its destruction and massacres, but our resistance will escalate," he said.

Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians in raids on Gaza late Tuesday and on Wednesday.

SPACE.WIRE