Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Saturday brushed off Israeli threats to kill him, as American and other world leaders criticized Israel's prime minister for suggesting an act that could plunge the region into further chaos.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in interviews published a day earlier that two of his arch foes, Arafat and a Lebanese guerrilla leader Hassan Nasrallah, should not feel beyond the reach of assassination by Israeli forces.
On Saturday, Arafat emerged from his office to speak to reporters in the West Bank headquarters complex where he's been confined for more than two years by such threats.
"For me, I don't care," Arafat said in halting English from the front steps of his office. "I care only for my people, for our students, for our children."
His aides, however, say they are taking the threats seriously. Last month, Israel killed Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the most senior Palestinian figure targeted by Israel in more than three years of fighting.
Violence continued Saturday, with a Palestinian gunman shooting dead an Israeli man and wounding his 12-year-old daughter in their home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
The radical Islamic Hamas group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Avnei Hefetz settlement near the Palestinian town of Tulkarem, the Lebanese TV station Al Manar reported.
Palestinian security officials identified the gunman as Zohair Arda, 18, a Hamas militant from the Tulkarem refugee camp, and said he had been released days earlier from an Israeli jail.
The assailant, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, cut through the settlement's perimeter fence shortly after midnight and broke into a home, firing shots that lightly wounded the girl. When her father appeared with a pistol, the attacker shot him to death, the army said.
Palestinian gunmen have repeatedly targeted isolated settlements, particularly during the Jewish Sabbath when more residents are at home. The Israeli military said that during three-and-a-half years of fighting, 25 settlements have been attacked during the Sabbath and holidays, with 41 Israelis killed and more than 60 hurt.
In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces searched for tunnels used to smuggle weapons under the Egyptian border. Troops blew up one tunnel in the border town of Rafah in a massive explosion that leveled a three story house above the underground passageway. The blast left behind a deep crater.
In frequent raids on the Gaza-Egypt border, soldiers have uncovered 80 such tunnels during the recent years of fighting, according to military figures.
Residents of the area said three Palestinians were lightly wounded during the latest military operation. An army spokesman had no immediate reports of casualties.
Helicopters fired heavy machine guns into an empty field nearby, apparently to provide protective cover for withdrawing Israeli forces.
Also Saturday, the Israeli military arrested 26 wanted Palestinians in a large-scale arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus. Witnesses said more than 70 jeeps drove into the city before dawn, and that soldiers ordered people out of homes during the raid.
Arafat, meanwhile, said he was unimpressed with Israel's threats against his life.
Sharon has repeatedly accused Arafat of involvement in attacks on Israelis. It was not clear if his remarks meant he would no longer honor assurances to US officials that Israel would not harm the veteran Palestinian leader.
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