JERUSALEM - Fighting raged across the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday after a botched Israeli missile strike against a convoy carrying Palestinian activists brought simmering violence to boiling point.
Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least three missiles at the headquarters of the Palestinian National Security forces in southern Gaza in
the morning in a strike that the Israeli Army said was in response to a mortar attack.
In some of the heaviest fighting in months, gunfire on the outskirts of Jerusalem had echoed through the Holy City late on Saturday after Palestinians opened fire at Israeli apartment buildings, drawing a heavy Israeli response.
Tracer bullets tore through the night sky and explosions and the distant rattle of Israeli machinegun fire reverberated through central Jerusalem.
Senior West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, an influential figure in a 10-month-old Palestinian uprising, said he was the target of the Israeli missile strike that hit two cars near his office outside Ramallah, but not his vehicle.
"This is a failed assassination attempt," Barghouthi said. "The criminal occupiers will pay for this new crime."
Israeli military and political sources denied Barghouthi was the target. Security officials said the missiles were intended for an aide wounded as his car suffered a direct hit.
No one was hurt in the pre-dawn helicopter missile strike in southern Gaza, which hit the office of a Palestinian commander, punching three holes in the wall and ceiling.
The Israeli Army said the attack was in response to the firing of four mortar bombs on Saturday from the vicinity of the building, which a military source said was used as a weapons distribution and operational base.
Police said 14 apartment buildings in Gilo, a Jewish settlement that Israel regards as a neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and two cars were hit by Palestinian bullets and an Israeli woman received a light face wound.
A Palestinian whose house was damaged by Israeli tank fire said glass fragments hurt his 10 children.
Fighting later spread to Bethlehem, where the Army reported heavy fire at Israeli soldiers guarding a bypass road, as well as at Jewish settlements and a shrine.
Israeli security officials said the missile strike in Ramallah was meant to hit the car carrying Barghouthi aide Mohammad Abu Halaweh, who they said was behind a spate of deadly shooting ambushes.
Palestinians say Israel's military has assassinated around 60 activists since the uprising began last September after peace talks deadlocked. At least 510 Palestinians, 130 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat sent "urgent letters" to the Group of Eight countries, which at their summit last month backed allowing international monitors to oversee a blueprint for implementing a truce and renewing peace talks.
Israel describes its policy of tracking and killing Palestinian militants, which has drawn widespread international criticism, as "active self-defence" against those planning deadly attacks on the Jewish state.
About 10,000 Israeli peace activists held a candlelight vigil through the streets of Tel Aviv to protest against the violence.
Waving banners saying "Stop the Bloodshed", the activists marched to the Defence Ministry in one of the biggest rallies by Israeli doves for months.
- REUTERS
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JERUSALEM - Fighting raged across the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday after a botched Israeli missile strike against a convoy carrying Palestinian activists brought simmering violence to boiling point.
Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least three missiles at the headquarters of the Palestinian National Security forces in southern Gaza in
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