Israeli helicopter gunships killed a senior Palestinian militant in a missile strike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, drawing vows to unleash disaster on the Israeli people to avenge the attack.
The air raid, Israel's strongest reprisal since a Palestinian gunman killed two woman in Jerusalem on Tuesday, was the latest incident in a cycle of death and retribution that has all but buried US-led efforts to end 16 months of bloodshed.
In a further sign of Washington's acquiescence to recent Israeli operations, the United States said it understood Israel's decision to confine Yasser Arafat to his West Bank headquarters, a move Palestinians say is aimed at toppling him.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced he had accepted an invitation by US President Bush to meet in Washington on February 7.
It will be the right-wing prime minister's second visit with Bush in just over two months. Arafat has yet to meet Bush since the Republican president took office last year.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, senior official of the Hamas Islamic movement in Gaza, called Thursday's air strike in Gaza ``a drop in the sea of Israeli crimes'' and vowed ``painful'' retaliation.
``The message...is the Israeli government is fully responsible for what will happen to the Israeli people -- disasters as a consequence of these attacks,'' he said.
Palestinian hospital sources identified the dead man as Bakar Hamdan, described by the Israeli army as Hamas's military commander in the Khan Younis area of the Gaza Strip. Two other militants were seriously wounded, the sources said.
Israeli security sources said he was targeted for his role in attacks on Israelis, including a raid that killed four soldiers in southern Israel on January 9.
Israel has killed dozens of militants under its internationally condemned policy of tracking and striking at people it says have been behind deadly assaults on Israelis during the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Palestinians call it state-sponsored assassination.
ISRAELI INCURSION FOLLOWS AIR STRIKE
Palestinian officials said tanks and troops thrust several hundred meters (yards) into Khan Younis after the missile strike in the Palestinian-ruled town and met resistance from gunmen.
Witnesses said two missiles hit the car, which was reduced to a charred skeleton. Hamdan was killed and two other occupants of the vehicle were seriously hurt, hospital sources said.
Several hundred Palestinians gathered outside the Khan Younis hospital, shouting for revenge.
The air strike followed a shooting spree by a Palestinian gunman who killed two women in Jerusalem's shopping district. A group attached to Arafat's Fatah faction said it was avenging the killing of one of its leaders.
Hamas, the main group behind a wave of suicide attacks, had vowed ``all-out war'' after Israeli forces killed four of its militants in a West Bank raid on Tuesday.
The latest violence underscored U.S. pressure on Arafat to rein in militants plus Washington's reluctance to criticize Israel's recent military operations against the Palestinians.
Israel has confined Arafat to his headquarters in Ramallah since last week when it tightened its ring of tanks around his compound. ``We understand Israel's need to take steps to ensure its security,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Adding to Middle East tensions on Thursday, a car bomb in Beirut killed Lebanese warlord Elie Hobeika, whose pro-Israeli Christian militia massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982.
Some Lebanese officials initially blamed Israel, which denied any role. A Lebanese group saying it opposed Syria's continued grip on the country claimed responsibility, calling Hobeika a traitor for his allegiance to Damascus.
Hobeika died shortly after saying he was ready to testify in a lawsuit brought by Palestinians in Belgium accusing Sharon, who denies sanctioning the massacres when he was defense minister, of crimes against humanity.
The latest Israeli-Palestinian violence also overshadowed a dispute between Sharon and dovish parliamentary speaker Avraham Burg over a planned visit to the Palestinian assembly in defiance of Sharon's efforts to isolate Palestinian leaders.
At least 818 Palestinians and 248 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began shortly after peace talks stalled.
(China Daily January 25, 2002)
