- 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."
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- 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.
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- Another missile struck a nearby house, killing a nine-year
old boy and a 10-year old girl and wounding seven other people.
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- "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.
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- Israel regularly targets Palestinian militants waging
a 23-month-old uprising for independence, a tactic which has drawn international
condemnation.
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- "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.
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- An Israeli security source said at least one militant
was believed to have fled the car before the missile's impact.
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- The attack shattered the weekend calm at the village,
the hubbub confusing early reports on the casualties.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- As then, the army said on Saturday it regretted causing
innocent casualties in the Tubas air strike.
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