BULCIAGO, Italy, April24 (Reuters) - Friends and family of Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist abducted and killed by al Qaeda aligned militants in the Gaza Strip, bid their last farewells at a funeral service on Sunday in his hometown in northern Italy.

Hundreds of people paid tribute to the body of Arrigoni, who was 36, and attended his funeral in the quiet town of Bulciago, some 35 km (21 miles) north of Milan where his mother is mayor.

His body was found earlier this month in an abandoned house in the Gaza Strip after he was abducted by militants from a Jihadist Salafi group the day before.

Arrigoni was a committed supporter of Palestinians and a strong critic of Israeli policy.

One of the prelates who presided at the funeral mass was Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of the Greek-Melchite Catholic Church. Capucci was arrested by the Israelis in the 1970s for smuggling weapons to the Palestine Liberation Organization in a diplomatic car.