JERUSALEM — Israel's assassination on March 22 of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant group Hamas, greatly shocked Christians in the Holy Land.

“This assassination will only lead to more violence,” said Nagi Mansour, the owner of a small coffee shop in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Mansour, in his 40s, insisted that Yassin “was not a violent person. He was simply demanding what was rightfully his.”

Handing out steaming glasses of sweet coffee to some friends seated at his eatery's only table, Mansour said, “Hamas has made a mistake by killing innocent Israelis. As a Christian, I don't support the organization. Fanatical ideas are evil and dangerous. But to kill such a man was a mistake.”

Like their Muslim counterparts, many Christian Palestinians viewed Yassin as a staunch advocate for the Palestinian cause, even if some personally disapproved of his organization's violent tactics.

Christians in East Jerusalem and elsewhere shuttered their shops during the three days of mourning for Yassin ordered by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Some Christian schools and organizations were also closed.

Yassin, who became a quad-riplegic in an accident at age 12, never physically pulled a trigger or booby-trapped a bomb. He was, however, Hamas’ chief ideologue and encouraged his followers to destroy the state of Israel and to create a nondemocratic Islamic state in its place.

According to the Israeli government, Hamas attacks committed during the three years the Palestinians have been waging their uprising have killed more than 400 Israelis and wounded more than 2,000. The organization's bombings — in public buses and family restaurants — have often been timed to disrupt peace negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority or during Jewish holidays.

The U.S. government defines Hamas as a terrorist organization.

The Holy See condemned the assassination, as did the United Nations, the European Union and many individual nations.

“The Holy See joins the international community to reprove this act of violence that cannot be justified in any state of law,” said Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls in a statement immediately after the killing. “Authentic and lasting peace cannot be the fruit of a mere ostentation of force. It is above all the fruit of moral and juridical action.”

The patriarchate of Jerusalem, the local arm of the Church, did not issue a statement, despite the fact that Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, is a Palestinian nationalist and outspoken critic of Israel.

“We want to calm down the situation, not inflame it,” a representative of the patriarchate said in explanation.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon justified the killing, stating that Yassin was a “mastermind of Palestinian terror, a mass murderer who is among Israel's greatest enemies,” the Associated Press reported.

Support for Israel

Though most Holy Land Christians, especially those who are Palestinians, criticize Israel, there are some who side with Israel.

“Hamas asked for it,” said Jan Willem van der Hoeven, director of the International Christian Zionist Center, an evangelical organization in Jerusalem.

“From everything I've heard, Hamas didn't want a dialogue with Israel,” he said. “It has consistently declared that Palestine belongs to them and only them, that the Jews should go back to the places they came from. And if the Jews don't graciously leave, Hamas will terrorize Israelis until they all leave or are all dead.”

“I agree with the Israeli prime minister,” van der Hoeven added, “when he said that Ahmed Yassin was the brother of Osama bin Laden.”

Christians Angered

At the Melia Center for Art, an Old City store run by the Arab Orthodox Society to help local Christian and Muslim women earn a livelihood by creating beautiful hand-embroidered items, the mood was more thoughtful.

“The assassination was not a good idea. It will open the door to more violence,” said Hala, one of the store's workers, who declined to give her last name.

She said Christians are as upset as their Muslim neighbors about Yassin's death.

“Do people expect that we would be happy [about the killing] because he was a Muslim and we're Christian? We're all Palestinians,” she said.

Hala, who looks to be in her 50s, then told how her parents fled their home in Acco, near Haifa, in 1948, when Arab countries attacked Israel at its founding.

“We moved to Lebanon and my father spent 14 years working in Yemen, away from his family. We lost our father during this period,” she said.

Even now, living in East Jerusalem, Hala says she feels displaced.

“We lost our house, our land, and even now I never feel safe,” she said. “I'm afraid when my son goes to Jaffa Road [the main street in West Jerusalem] because if there's an explosion the Israeli police round up the Arabs and beat them. Soldiers demand to see their identity cards. It humiliates them.”

Such events, as well as the severe financial crisis, are taking their toll on the Christian community, Hala said, despair creeping into her voice.

“Our young people want to emigrate. We're losing our children,” she said.

Despite the situation, Hala said, “I don't believe in violence and terror. But when I go to the rural villages and see what's happening there, I realize that if I were in their position, I might do the same thing. They feel they have nothing to lose.”

Voicing the opinion of most Palestinians — both Christian and Arab — in the Holy Land, Hala said, “There can be no peace without justice, and justice means giving the Palestinians the chance to have a free country.”

Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.