A confident Hamas closed its campaign for today's Palestinian elections by taunting Israel with chants in Hebrew during a rally that drew several thousand in the heart of Ramallah. Women marched behind their men for modesty's sake. A teenager held up a Palestinian flag topped off with a wooden crescent. A loudspeaker played bursts of automatic gunfire during the march on Monday, and mocked unsuccessful efforts by the ruling Fatah movement and president Mahmoud Abbas to reopen negotiations with Israel. 'Negotiate with the enemy? Yes, but negotiate using weapons. He understands only one thing,' the voice from the loudspeaker said, followed by bursts of gunfire. The harsh rhetoric was at odds with recent efforts by Hamas to soften its stance towards Israel. 'What is our constitution?' the crowd was asked. 'The Koran,' it roared back. 'What is our path?' 'Jihad,' the crowd responded. A chant in Hebrew followed, addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who lies in a coma in a Jerusalem hospital but is still regarded as the personification of the enemy. The chant was an expression of pride in the fact that Israel has been unable to crush Hamas, which has continued firing rockets at Israeli targets in the aftermath of last September's Gaza withdrawal. 'Listen, listen, oh Sharon. There is no security,' young marchers shouted. One speaker, a diminutive, elderly woman in Palestinian traditional dress, proclaimed: 'Hamas is the mother of the message. Hamas is the mother of the people.' Once again the recorded machine-gun bursts came on to sign off her message.