Fighting erupts in Middle East after killings

JERUSALEM - Shots, mortar blasts and calls for vengeance echoed through the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday as the region embarked on a new wave of violence after Israel's targeted killing of two senior Islamic militants.

The militant Islamic group Hamas has vowed to avenge Tuesday's missile strike in the West Bank which killed two top officials in the group responsible for a spate of deadly bomb attacks. Six others, including two boys, were also killed.

The killings brought simmering violence to a boiling point as gun battles erupted across the West Bank, including the town of Hebron where a Palestinian was killed during an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Tuesday's missile strike, which Palestinian leaders have called a massacre, had sparked such outrage across the West Bank and Gaza Strip that the situation was "out of control".

Gun battles erupted near the West Bank towns of Tulkarm, Nablus and Ramallah on Wednesday night and the Israeli Army reported its troops came under Palestinian fire in about a dozen incidents. The Army said three mortar rounds were fired at Jewish settlements in southern Gaza, lightly wounding an Israeli woman.

United States Secretary Colin Powell slammed the Israeli strike as "too aggressive", and said it "just serves to increase the level of tension and violence in the region".

But sharply worded criticism from the US and the European Union, which called the attack "provocative", did not deter Israel from its policy of targeted killings of militants.

"Israel will continue to reserve its basic right to self-defence and to fulfil its obligation to protect the lives of its citizens," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said after the inner-cabinet approved a continuation of the policy.

Palestinians accuse Israel of "assassinating" around 60 activists since their uprising against Israeli occupation erupted last September after peace negotiations deadlocked.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the strike was necessary to prevent a fresh wave of Palestinian suicide bomb attacks.

"We must defend ourselves."

Palestinian minister Abed Rabbo told Israeli television that the killings "made the situation volatile and, I am sorry to say, even out of control".

Israel said Jamal Mansour, a high-profile Hamas official it killed, was part of a Hamas command responsible for a long series of deadly attacks, including a Tel Aviv disco suicide bombing that killed 21 people on June 1.

In Nablus, tens of thousands of Palestinians, some firing semi-automatic rifles into the air, chanted "Revenge, revenge" and "Death to Israel" during an emotional funeral procession for the eight dead, including 8 and 10-year-old brothers.

The killing of the children, who were walking past Mansour's office, was an acute embarrassment for Israel.

Israeli Army chief Shaul Mofaz said that if the Army had known children were in the vicinity it would have called off the attack.

Peres, one of Israel's leading doves, said it had had no alternative but to launch the strike to stop bombers from reaching its cities.

Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in Rome to drum up support from Pope John Paul and Italy for international monitors, said that such a force was needed "very, very quickly".

Israel opposes the move.

At least 509 Palestinians, 130 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have died in more than 10 months of fighting.

- REUTERS

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