- (AFP) -- Israeli tanks killed six Palestinians, including
two children, when they returned fire at Palestinian militants who had
launched rockets at them in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Palestinian
and Israeli officials said.
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- The killings came a day after Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon held talks in Washington with US President George W. Bush,
who had asked the premier before his visit to curb the alarming number
of Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli forces.
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- The dead were a four-year-old girl and a 12-year-old
child, two young men and two elderly women, Rafah hospital director Ali
Mussa told AFP.
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- The injured included a young girl in critical condition
and a dozen people listed as seriously hurt, he said.
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- The Israeli tanks fired three shells at the houses and
blasted them with heavy machine-gun fire after Palestinian militants fired
on Israeli army bulldozers building a wall on the Egyptian border, witnesses
said.
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- Israeli army spokeswoman Captain Sharon Feingold said
the Israeli force had come under fire from "anti-tank missiles."
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- "This is another case of Palestinian terrorists
using the civilian population to hide behind and conduct terrorist activity,"
she told AFP.
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- At least six people, most of them children, were killed
last week in Rafah by Israeli forces in incursions into the self-rule Palestinian
town on the Israel-controlled border with Egypt.
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- One was a four-year-old child crushed to death when Israeli
sappers detonated a nearby house reportedly used for arms smuggling.
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- Israeli tanks make regular charges into the impoverished
town of 140,000 Palestinians in search of tunnels dug under the border
into Egypt and allegedly used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip, a
hugely overpopulated area which is the bastion of hardline Islamists.
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- The killings came as Sharon was about to head home from
Washington, where he obtained a tacit nod from Bush to respond to any possible
Iraqi missile strike should Baghdad attack Israel during an anticipated
US campaign against President Saddam Hussein.
-
- But Israeli analysts said it was unlikely Iraq would
have the chance to use its limited missile capability against the Jewish
state, which has in any case developed an advanced anti-missile system
capable of knocking out incoming rockets with its own missiles.
-
- Aside from the new bloodshed in the Gaza Strip -- more
and more the focus of Israeli raids since the army brought most of the
West Bank under its control four months ago -- a Palestinian gunman was
arrested after opening fire on an Israeli car in the Jordan Valley, injuring
an Israeli.
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- Israeli forces continued their tireless hunt for militant
suspects in the West bank, arresting another 10 people in overnight raids.
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- The army arrests about the same number most days, with
the Red Cross estimating the number of Palestinians in Israeli jails at
more than 7,000.
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- Meanwhile in Ramallah, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
was putting the finishing touches to his new cabinet, which he was forced
to reshuffle in September for the second time in four months after his
rebellious parliament insisted his promised reforms had not gone nearly
far enough.
-
- Longtime Arafat stalwart Yasser Abed Rabbo said he would
not be standing for office in the new government after reports emerged
he was facing the chop, as Arafat's own Fatah faction -- which dominates
the parliament -- piled pressure on its veteran leader to plunge ahead
with a major overhaul.
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- Arafat's administration, set up in 1994, is widely accused
of corruption and mismanagement, as well as coming under flak for having
no clear strategy to exit the two-year Palestinian uprising which has killed
almost 2,000 Palestinians and more than 600 Israelis.
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- Fatah has secured the key position of interior minister
for its senior official Hani al-Hassan, with a final line-up not expected
to be announced until Sunday.
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- Also simmering were tensions with Lebanon, after Israel's
northern neighbour opened a controversial pumping station on the Wazzani
river, which feeds indirectly into the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main freshwater
reservoir.
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- Sharon has said that excess siphoning off the Wazzani's
waters would constitute grounds for war for Israel, though Israeli analysts
say a US-mediated diplomatic solution is likely, rather than strikes against
southern Lebanon.
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- Analysts here see the pumping as inspired by the vehemently
anti-Israeli Muslim militia Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria, the main
power-broker in Lebanon.
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- They said the group was trying to stir up tensions, believing
Israel's response will be limited by US calls for restraint as it tries
to gather Arab backing for a war against Saddam.
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- Israeli Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh said Thursday
that Israel would respond militarily if Lebanon pumped more than the "necessary
minimum" of water from the Wazzani.
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