Israel fails in apparent bid to kill Jihad chief

GAZA - Israeli helicopters hit Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after attacks led by the Palestinian militant group killed 13 soldiers and dealt the Middle East's mightiest army its worst blow in two years.

Islamic Jihad said helicopter missiles struck a Gaza City seminary housing its leader Mohammed al-Hindi's office but that he was safely in hiding. The premises of a pro-Jihad charity were also attacked. Israel called both targets militant fronts.

In Rafah, a Gaza refugee camp, an Israeli helicopter razed an Islamic Jihad bomb laboratory, the army said. Palestinian witnesses described the target as the home of a local group commander who escaped, while a woman bystander was wounded.

Israel lost 13 soldiers to Gaza City and Rafah ambushes this week claimed by Islamic Jihad and kindred militant group Hamas as coups in a three-and-a-half-year Palestinian revolt.

Israeli forces quit Rafah on Saturday after scouring the camp for the remains of their troops who were killed.

Polls showed deepening support in Israel for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan, now stalled by hardliners in his own rightist party, as this week's losses reminded Israelis of the high cost of the hard-to-defend Gaza settlements.

The Gaza clashes also raised concern among Israeli top brass that Palestinians have adopted tactics Hizbollah fighters used to hound Israel from its south Lebanon occupation zone in 2000.

Sworn to Israel's destruction, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have carried out suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis. Israel has assassinated many of their leaders.

Israel killed 28 Palestinians, including civilians, during four days of fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip.

In Rafah, witnesses said Israeli bulldozers had razed scores of homes, and that a Palestinian was crushed in the rubble.

The army said it demolished homes used as shooting positions by militants who killed seven of its troops. One building had collapsed during an exchange of fire with gunmen holed up inside, it said.

Medics said 14 people were hurt in Saturday's air strikes.

"We will respond to the cowardly attempt on the life of our leader by punishing the Zionist enemies," Islamic Jihad official Khader Habib told Reuters, describing the seminary strike as an attempt to assassinate Hindi. "There will be an earthquake-like response that will shatter the Zionist entity."

Israeli security sources said Hindi -- a 50-year-old physician who has lived underground for his own safety in recent months -- had not been targeted. But one source called him "the unquestioned head of Islamic Jihad's terrorist operations".

The source said the seminary was a front for Islamic Jihad and the other group hit on Saturday was involved in recruiting suicide bombers with funding from Hizbollah and Iran.

On Friday, militants shot dead two soldiers in Rafah while troops were destroying dozens of buildings along a nearby Gaza-Egypt border corridor that Israel controls and plans to widen by demolishing numerous homes.

An army statement said a soldier had helped a Palestinian woman carry bags into her apartment and was shot dead by snipers outside the building. When a rescue team arrived, militants shot at them as well, killing another soldier, the army said.

Islamic Jihad and Hamas ambushed Israeli vehicles in Gaza City and Rafah on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing 11 soldiers inside.

- REUTERS