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Israeli Missile Strike Kills
4 Children, One Militant

By Wael al-Ahmad
8-30-2

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli helicopter gunships killed a Palestinian militant and four children in a double-missile strike in the West Bank on Saturday which the army described as a blow to "terror networks."
 
Palestinian witnesses said two Apache helicopters struck at Tubas village near Jenin in the afternoon, one missile obliterating the car and its three passengers -- a militant linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and two teenagers, neither of them combatants.
 
Another missile struck a nearby house, killing a nine-year old boy and a 10-year old girl and wounding seven other people.
 
"What is the sense of hitting a building with no militants or wanted men inside, only civilians?" Tubas Mayor Diab Abu Khezaran told Reuters by phone.
 
Israel regularly targets Palestinian militants waging a 23-month-old uprising for independence, a tactic which has drawn international condemnation.
 
"As part of the fight against terror networks...helicopters struck a vehicle carrying a number of wanted men who were planning attacks within Israel in the coming days. At least one of the wanted men was hit," the army said in a statement.
 
An Israeli security source said at least one militant was believed to have fled the car before the missile's impact.
 
The attack shattered the weekend calm at the village, the hubbub confusing early reports on the casualties.
 
Witnesses had initially identified four dead militants, and then three dead militants and two children, medical officials said, because the bodies were too charred to be properly identified.
 
Israel's recent F-16 air strike against Hamas's military commander in the Gaza Strip, which killed 15 other Palestinians including nine children, prompted a rash of revenge attacks by the group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction.
 
As then, the army said on Saturday it regretted causing innocent casualties in the Tubas air strike.





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