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Israeli attacks target Hamas strongholds

Sisters of a Hamas member killed in an Israeli air raid weep during his funeral in Gaza City on Monday. PHOTO: AP

Seven Palestinians died and dozens were wounded in the deadliest Israeli air strike in Gaza in six months, as Palestinians charged that a helicopter fired a missile at a crowded refugee camp street while medics were treating casualties.

The Israeli attack late Monday on the Nusseirat camp followed three air strikes in Gaza City in which three people were killed. In yet another attack, Israeli helicopters returned at night to hit an alleged Hamas explosives warehouse targeted earlier in the day, capping one of the most intense days of Israeli air assaults in Gaza in three years of conflict.

Palestinians threatened revenge, but Israel's premier pledged more strikes against militants, pushing Mideast peace efforts farther into the background, though both sides continued to refer to the US-backed "road map" peace plan.

The nighttime strike in the Nusseirat camp in central Gaza, in which 75 people were injured in addition to the seven killed, was the bloodiest since an April air raid in Gaza City killed nine people.

Residents said Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at the main street, destroying a car.

An Israeli army statement said the vehicle was carrying members of a Palestinian terrorist squad fleeing after a failed attempt to breach the border fence with Israel a few kilometers to the northeast.

Residents said one of the dead was a doctor who was treating victims when a second missile struck. The identity of the other victims was not immediately known.

Israel's Channel 10 TV said that none of them were militants, characterizing the refugee camp strike as a "mistake."

Hundreds of camp residents carried charred pieces of the vehicle aloft and chanted, "Revenge, revenge."

During three years of violence, Israeli air strikes in Gaza have caused dozens of civilian casualties. In April, an air attack killed Hamas leader Said Arabeed and eight other people. In July last year, 15 people were killed, including nine children, in an air strike that targeted another Hamas leader, Salah Shehadeh.

The three daytime Israeli air strikes targeted Hamas weapons caches, the military said. Also, two militants the Israelis said tried to retrieve explosives from one of them were killed in a helicopter attack, along with a bystander.

In a statement released in Beirut, the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad pledged to retaliate for Israel's attacks on Palestinians.

"The two movements agreed to confront the Zionist aggression on our people in Palestine and to urge all [Palestinian] factions and resistance forces to coordinate among each other to confront this aggression," the statement said.

The Israelis would promise no letup: "The Israeli military will continue to act to foil terror attacks, capture murderers and liquidate terror organizations," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday in a speech to parliament.

Also Monday, US officials at the embassy in Tel Aviv confirmed that John Wolf, the head of the team monitoring implementation of the troubled "road map", was not planning to return to the region soon.

A Palestinian bombing attack on a US convoy in Gaza last week, killing three American guards, had led to expectations that the US would scale back its involvement.
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