11 Palestinians wounded in Israeli missile strike to assassinate Hamas military leader

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GAZA CITY (AP) — An Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at a car carrying members of the Hamas resistance group late Tuesday, wounding at least 11 people and raising fears of an intensification of Middle East violence.

The Israeli occupation government issued a statement saying the targets were senior Hamas leaders. Hamas confirmed its members were in the car.

The strike threatens to scuttle an informal arrangement between Israel and Hamas, whereby Israel avoids trying to kill Hamas fighters in exchange for the group stopping attacks on civilians inside Israel. Israeli security officials had said the attacks on other groups would continue.

Witnesses said the Fiat car was travelling towards the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, a Hamas stronghold, when Apache helicopters opened fire. "I saw a flame hit a small car and people trying to escape from the car," said Raouf Musalam, a pharmacy owner who witnessed the attack. "Apaches were overhead for about two minutes while people rushed to help the wounded people." A crowd of hundreds of angry Palestinians gathered around the heavily damaged vehicle.

Dr Jomma Saka of Gaza's Shifa Hospital said 11 people were taken to the hospital. One was in critical condition, another suffered moderate injuries, and the rest were lightly wounded, he said.

Hamas officials said one of the people in the car was a mid-level commander, Jamal Ismael Al-Jarrah. It was not clear if he was among the wounded. Assafir newspaper reported that Al-Jarrah, his wife, and his brother were in the car and they managed to leave it just before it was hi.

Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said Israel would pay a heavy price for the attack. "These massacres and crimes prove that Israel is seeking violence and not looking for peace, security and stability," he told Associated Press Television News. Israel has frequently carried out similar air strikes aimed at Palestinian activists. Israeli helicopters last struck in the Gaza Strip last Thursday, killing three Islamic Jihad members and two civilians in a similar air attack. Before that, there had been a two-month letup in such attacks.

Earlier Tuesday, Israeli forces reentered Nablus, exchanging gunfire with Palestinians and clamping a curfew on the heavily populated ancient quarter of the West Bank city, Palestinian witnesses said. No casualties were reported in the gunfights.

Israeli forces had pulled out of Nablus on Monday after a two-week operation — focused around the Balata refugee camp — in which soldiers arrested dozens of men.

Troops also killed a Palestinian man near the city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital officials said. They said the man was killed by random gunfire. The Israeli army claimed soldiers fired at a group of "suspicious figures who were planting explosives near the settlement of Morag."

Continued violence has frozen efforts to implement the US-backed "roadmap" peace plan, which also requires the Palestinians to dismantle groups responsible for three years of attacks against Israelis.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has resisted a crackdown on the resistance, instead seeking a truce agreement with the factions. Despite Egyptian help, so far he has not succeeded.

The roadmap also requires to remove dozens of settlement outposts put up since 2001.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signed an order this week to remove four of the outposts. Only one, Ginnot Arieh, is populated. Israel posted eviction notices on homes in the community on Tuesday, advising residents they should leave within three days.

At the same time, the population of the 150 veteran Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza has grown at a significant rate, according to year-end figures provided by the Israeli government Tuesday.

The interior ministry data showed that the population in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza had increased by 16 per cent in the three years since Sharon assumed power, and now stands at 236,381 people.

The data released by the Israeli interior ministry indicated that settlements are growing faster than the government has indicated, especially in several isolated settlements — the same communities that Sharon has hinted he would dismantle in the coming months.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, attributed the increase to "natural growth." However, the Israeli Central of Statistics said the "natural" growth rate in Jewish settlements is 3.5 per cent annually. That suggested that even though settlers are targeted frequently by Palestinian attackers, the settlements — which offer tax breaks and other incentives — continue to attract new residents.

Palestinians say the settlements _ — in territories conquered by Israel in 1967 — are making it increasingly harder for them to realise the goal of establishing an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.

"That is what we have been warning the Americans and others, because in actual reality, this government is really encouraging settlers, settlements, subsidising them," Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said of the interior ministry data.

Sharon has traditionally been a champion of settlements established in the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. But in June, he committed to implement the roadmap, while adding reservations.

Earlier this month, Sharon called for a unilateral "disengagement" from the Palestinians if there is no progress on the roadmap. He said this separation would include dismantling some isolated settlements but strengthening control over others.

Sharon has not identified which settlements he would dismantle. But some of the communities that are mentioned as likely candidates showed rapid growth in the latest government figures. For example, Netzarim in the Gaza Strip grew 24 per cent during the three-year period — from 321 residents to 399.

GAZA CITY - The Palestinian Islamic resistance organization, Hamas, vowed that the liquidation of its leaders would not halt its anti-Israeli occupation attacks after a military chief survived the first assassination attempt in months.

“This will not stop the resistance of our people or change the position of Hamas which advocates the pursuit of battle until the end of the occupation and the recovery of the rights of the Palestinian people,” leading Hamas figure Ismail Haniya told AFP.

The raid on Tuesday evening, which left 11 people injured in the centre of Gaza City, was a “new Israeli crime”, which showed the government of Ariel Sharon was intent on “ending the intifada and annihilating the Palestinian cause”, Haniya added.

Jamal Al-Jarrah, a leader of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and another military activist escaped unhurt when Israeli helicopter gunships failed to hit their car with a first strike. The pair managed to flee before the helicopters fired a second rocket, blowing up the vehicle, witnesses said, while 11 passers-by sustained shrapnel wounds, according to medics.

Hamas has not carried out any attacks on Israeli targets since early September, although it recently refused to declare a halt to campaigns even against Israeli civilians.

Israel has tried to kill several senior Hamas figures in air raids this year, including its spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and political chief Abdelaziz Rantissi, but had held off on such operations since October.

A senior member of the smaller Islamic Jihad movement was killed in a Gaza air strike on Thursday.