An Israeli helicopter fired a missile near Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Wednesday, but he emerged unscathed as Israel retaliated with fury for the killing of six Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
At least 13 Palestinian civilians and security officers were killed in the barrage of Israeli reprisal strikes against Palestinian targets across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"Arafat and his aides are safe in his office," Mohammed Dahlan, a Palestinian security chief, told Reuters after the missile hit an intelligence facility several yards away in the presidential compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
It was the closest Israel has come to harming Arafat, under Israeli siege in Ramallah, in nearly 17 months of bloodshed which US and international mediation has failed to curb.
The attack on the Israeli army checkpoint and fierce retaliation threatened a worse deterioration to come in one of the deadliest phases of violence between the sides, set in motion this week, since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation flared in September 2000.
An armed wing of Arafat's Fatah faction and the militant Islamic group Hamas issued rival claims of responsibility for the attack on the army post west of Ramallah in which gunmen shot the soldiers at close range in a caravan and then fled.
The deadliest strike on troops in the uprising was bound to put right-wing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for stronger action against the Palestinians and boost calls from the left for a pullout in the West Bank and Gaza.
Sharon, who was due to discuss the mounting violence with his security cabinet Wednesday, has said he has no intention of toppling or physically harming Arafat.
Death Toll Climbs
Ten Israelis and 25 Palestinians, including two suicide bombers, have been killed since Monday in one of the worst spasms of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Arafat aide Ahmed Abdel-Rahman accused Sharon of a "new crime" with the bombardments and pledged "(Palestinian) resistance will never end until the end of the occupation. The international community should shoulder its responsibility to stop the Israeli aggression."
Dore Gold, a Sharon adviser, again pointed a finger at Arafat, who Israel says does nothing to rein in militants.
"The Palestinian Authority has again delivered its daily dose of death with the murder of these innocent Israelis," Gold told Reuters. "They want to break the will of Israel, to break the unity of our society. We will not be broken."
The Ramallah helicopter strike, in which missiles also were fired at several Palestinian security targets, killed two Palestinians, medics and security sources said.
The attack followed a naval and air bombardment in Gaza City which local hospitals said killed four people at Arafat's seaside headquarters there.
On the edge of the Palestinian-ruled city of Nablus in the West Bank, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in several confrontations, local officials said.
In addition to the attack on Arafat's Gaza headquarters, an Israeli F-16 warplane bombed a Palestinian police facility in the city and helicopters fired more than two dozen missiles at a security compound known as Ansar 2, Palestinian officials said.
The army said it struck at Palestinian Authority security targets "because the Authority's security services are infected with terror and many of the attackers come from their midst."
The army said it barred Palestinian travel between main West Bank cities and villages and had arrested at least 20 suspected militants overnight following the attack on troops.
Rival Claims of Responsibility
At least 874 Palestinians and 273 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian revolt began after peace talks froze.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to Fatah, said in a statement its gunmen attacked the al-Ariq army checkpoint, some six km (four miles) northwest of Ramallah, to avenge a surge in Palestinian deaths.
The armed wing of Hamas also claimed the raid in a statement on its Internet site, vowing revenge "until the liberation of all of Palestine."
The incident was another blow to the Israeli army, which has buried seven soldiers in the past week, including three killed in the Gaza Strip by a mine that blew up a Merkava tank, the pride of its armored corps.
(China Daily February 20, 2002)
