Israeli missile kills Hamas militant
US urges restraint
An Israeli missile strike killed a Hamas militant and wounded 23 other Palestinians in Gaza City yesterday as the Jewish state promised a "war to the bitter end" against the Islamic group, despite US calls for restraint.
Witnesses said at least two helicopter rockets slammed into a car carrying Fuad al-Lidawi in Gaza's Sabra district, within sight of the home of Hamas spiritual head Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. It was the fourth such attack in a week of violence that has left the new US-sponsored "road map" peace effort in jeopardy.
In the West Bank, Palestinian gunmen killed an unidentified Israeli in the city of Jenin yesterday, witnesses said.
Fearing the flareup could reduce the "road map" to Middle East peace to cinders, Palestinian security chiefs convened in the West Bank city of Ramallah to discuss the plan's requirement that they rein in militant violence against Israelis.
In the latest incident, a Hamas suicide bomber killed 17 people aboard a Jerusalem bus on Wednesday. Israel, which had already made a failed assassination attempt on a Hamas leader, killed five militants and at least 16 civilians in air strikes.
"As a government responsible for the security of its citizens, we must wage a war to the bitter end (against Hamas) because no one else, at least at this stage, will do it," Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim told Army Radio.
Sheikh Yassin retorted that Hamas was unmoved by Israel's threats: "We are seekers of martyrdom," he told al-Arabiya television. "We don't fear threats and we don't fear death."
The United States reiterated that new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, whom Washington talks to in preference to President Yasser Arafat, had to act against Hamas. But it made an uncharacteristic call for restraint to its Israeli ally.