- GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli
helicopters fired missiles into Gaza City Thursday, wounding a top Palestinian
militant and killing two others in violence likely to dismay the United
States as it seeks Arab support for possible war against Iraq.
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- Mohammad Deif, shadowy commander of the Islamic group
Hamas' military wing and intended target of the missiles, was injured but
his life was not in danger, Hamas sources told Reuters.
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- Thousands of Hamas supporters carried Hamas flags in
the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood where the missiles struck.
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- "We congratulate the Palestinian people and the
Muslim nation on the survival of Mohammad Deif," a speaker said.
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- Israeli security sources said Deif was believed dead.
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- Palestinian hospital officials said 15 of 27 people wounded
were civilians under age 18, three of them small children. Six people were
in critical condition, they said.
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- Hamas, at the forefront of a two-year-old Palestinian
uprising, said two of its members were killed in a car hit by the missiles.
It vowed revenge with stepped-up suicide bombings inside Israel.
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- The strike occurred as Israel defended its week-long
siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters against world
criticism, saying it was meant to prevent escalated Palestinian violence
in anticipation of U.S. military action against Baghdad.
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- Washington has called the siege of Arafat's compound
"unhelpful" to efforts to persuade him to undertake security
and anti-corruption reforms to defuse the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
and resume peace talks.
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- The rare U.S. criticism of Israel also stemmed from concern
the siege and new violence could aggravate Middle East tensions and harm
its bid for Arab acquiescence in action against Iraq.
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- HAMAS MISSILES HIT ISRAEL
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- In the West Bank, three Israeli children and an adult
were shot and wounded in their car by suspected Palestinian gunmen near
the city of Hebron, the army said. It said it disarmed a car bomb in Baqa
Asharqiya in the northern West Bank.
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- The night before, Hamas militants launched three Qassam
rockets from Gaza territory into the nearby Israeli town of Sderot. No
one was injured.
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- On July 23, a missile from an Israeli F-16 jet killed
Deif's predecessor, Salah Shehada, his aide and 14 other Palestinians including
nine children in the same building, in an attack condemned worldwide for
killing innocents.
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- Israel blamed an intelligence lapse for those deaths.
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- Deif eluded an Israeli attempt to kill him last year
when a helicopter gunship blew apart his car seconds after he jumped out.
Deif has been on Israel's wanted list for a decade.
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- Claiming self-defense, its army regularly uses airborne
missiles in "pre-emptive" strikes against Palestinian militants
it blames for orchestrating attacks on Israelis.
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- Palestinians say the tactic is state-sponsored assassination
and it has been condemned abroad.
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- Hamas vowed retribution for Thursday's missile attack.
"Hamas will escalate martyrdom operations (suicide bombings) in Tel
Aviv, Jaffa and Haifa, everywhere," Hamas spokesman Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi
said.
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- Separately, a Palestinian was shot dead trying to infiltrate
a Jewish settlement in Gaza and a wanted Islamic militant was killed in
an Israeli special-forces raid on his West Bank cave hideout in which an
army lieutenant also died.
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- At least 1,569 Palestinians and 601 Israelis have been
killed since the Palestinian uprising against occupation erupted after
talks on a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
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