Israel has "marked for death" Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin, following a bomb attack that killed four Israeli soldiers in Gaza, Israel's deputy defense chief said on Friday. The wheelchair-bound Muslim cleric attended Friday prayers as usual at a mosque near his Gaza City home and told reporters he would embrace martyrdom. A Palestinian cabinet minister said Israel was playing with fire by making the threat. Hamas, an Islamic group dedicated to Israel's destruction, claimed responsibility for Wednesday's bombing by a Palestinian mother of two at a border industrial zone. It killed three soldiers and a security officer. "He is marked for death and he had better dig deep underground, where he won't be able to tell the difference between day and night," Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said of Yassin. "We will find him in his tunnels and liquidate him," he told Army Radio. Shaikh Yassin survived with only a slight hand injury an Israeli assassination attempt in September, when a warplane bombed a Gaza building just as he and other Hamas leaders were leaving. On Thursday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, threatened renewed military strikes on Palestinian activists. Israeli officials say army raids and a controversial barrier in the West Bank are responsible for the relative lull in attacks inside Israel. But there has been much speculation about a de facto cease-fire with Hamas, which both sides deny. **No Truce*** "I repeat that there is no room to speak about a truce," Yassin, surrounded by bodyguards, said outside the Gaza mosque. "Resistance must continue, until the removal of the occupation." Asked if he feared for his life, he replied: "They have tried to kill Sheikh Ahmed Yassin before... I would like to say to them: We do not fear death threats. We are seekers of martyrdom." He said Israel knew he had "nothing to do with military activity" carried out by Hamas's armed wing. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin is seen at his home in Gaza December 18, 2003. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)