JERUSALEM -- Islamic militants threatened violence Friday if a death sentence issued against a Palestinian bus bomb mastermind is carried out, but cancelled a rally in Gaza that would have inflamed difficult relations with PLO loyalists in the wake of clashes that left at least 12 people dead last week.


Said Badarneh, 24, was found guilty Thursday by an Israeli military court of planning a suicide bus bomb attack in the coastal town of Hadera, and driving the bomber to the central bus station April 13. Five Israelis died in the attack in addition to the bomber, and 30 were injured.


Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that he objected to the death sentence and that it would be a mistake to carry it out.


The unusually stiff ruling seemed an effort by Israel to confront a rash of suicide attacks directed at Israel in an attempt to torpedo the peace agreement between that country and the PLO. The worst by the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, was an Oct. 19 bus bombing in Tel Aviv in which 22 people were killed.


"Until now Israel has not executed a single Palestinian terrorist and I think it was right," Rabin told Israel Radio after returning from Spain on Friday. "It would be a mistake to carry out a death sentence."


The death penalty has seldom been ruled in Israel. The last time it was carried out was in 1962 against Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal.


Hamas leaders said the judgment would lead to more bloodshed.


"Violence only leads to more violence," said Sheikh Hamed Betawi, a Hamas official appointed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as deputy justice minister in the PLO self-rule government. "If Israel thinks that this sentence will decrease the number of attacks, then they are mistaken."


Despite the fighting words directed at Israel, Hamas leaders attempted to ease tensions between their supporters and PLO loyalists in Gaza by cancelling a rally to commemorate a Hamas guerrilla leader killed by Israel a year ago.


Hamas cited poor weather as the reason for the cancellation of the rally, which had been expected to attract 20,000 people.


"I address the Palestinian public in general, and the Islamic movement public in particular, despite the wounds, despite the pain, despite the blood falls, you are asked to be patient ... and to obey your leadership," said mosque preacher Mohammed Siyam.


The prospect of the rally had raised tensions already running high because of last week's clashes, the bloodiest inter-Palestinian violence since self-rule began in May. Arafat supporters had gathered for mass demonstrations earlier in the week.


Despite the easing of inter-Palestinian violence in Gaza, Arafat's loyalists clashed with PLO dissidents, backed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in Lebanon's largest refugee camp Friday. The battle left 10 people dead and 14 wounded.


At least three-quarters of the teeming shantytown of Ein el-Hilweh on the outskirts of Sidon, a port in south Lebanon, was overrun by Arafat's forces during seven hours of combat, some of it house to house, police said.


A lull descended on the camp as a cease-fire was reached for noon prayers.


The hostilities pitted Arafat's mainstream Fatah faction headed by its military intelligence chief Lieutenant Colonel Kemal Medhat and dissidents led by former Fatah militia commander Lieutenant Colonel Munir Makdah.


(AP, Reuters)