Two Palestinian militants killed in Gaza airstrike

This drew angry criticism from the Palestinians, who accused Israel of violating an agreement brokered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Israel promised tough retaliation for Monday’s suicide attack, which killed five people in the coastal city of Netanya.

This afternoon, an Israeli aircraft launched missiles at a group of militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades holed up in a house near the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, Palestinian witnesses and health officials said.

The strike killed Iyad Nasser, 27, and Iyad Qaddas, 21, hospital officials said. Six others were wounded, including an 11-year-old girl, hospital officials said.

The army said Qaddas was involved in numerous attacks on Israelis, including suicide bombings.

A spokesman for Al Aqsa, a violent group linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, vowed revenge, and angry Palestinian officials said Israel would bear responsibility for its actions. A separate Israeli airstrike yesterday killed a senior militant in southern Gaza.

“This Israeli action is going to sabotage the efforts made by the Palestinian Authority to maintain calm and to revive the peace process,” Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfik Abu Khoussa said.

In other violence, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier in the neck and killed him near the Qalandia checkpoint – a main crossing point for West Bank Palestinians entering Jerusalem.

The attacker, a Palestinian man from a village near Ramallah, was immediately arrested by soldiers and herded into a waiting vehicle. The blindfolded man, his lips trembling, was seen sitting on a bench inside the vehicle before he was taken away. Young soldiers sat nearby, consoling each other.

The army indefinitely closed the checkpoint, where thousands of Palestinians cross every day, while allowing people lined up to return to their homes in the West Bank.

The violence was likely to fuel further calls by Israel on the Palestinians to crack down on Palestinian militants.

Abbas, who has previously resisted calls to rein in the gunmen, has vowed to arrest those responsible for the Netanya bombing.

Islamic Jihad, the militant group that carried out Monday’s bombing, said Palestinian security forces have arrested 80 to 100 of its members. Palestinian officials confirmed only 17 arrests.

Despite the crackdown, Khaled Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza, urged members not to fight the Palestinian security forces. He said the group was working with the Palestinian leadership to end the crisis.

Stepping up the pressure, Israel has suspended talks to open up a road link to ferry Palestinians between Gaza and the West Bank, an Israeli official said today.

The “safe passage” agreement was included in a deal brokered by Rice last month that was intended to help rejuvenate Gaza following Israel’s withdrawal from the territory in September.

The movement of Palestinian people and goods between the two areas is considered vital to the Palestinian economy. The link was to have opened on December 15. A similar arrangement was in effect for a year but was cancelled after violence erupted in late 2000.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Israeli move a “flagrant violation” of the US-brokered agreement. “I wonder why would the Israelis do such a thing? We condemned the Netanya attack. What’s the linkage between that and the Gaza convoy? That mentality makes no sense,” Erekat said.

Officials at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv declined comment.

A new United Nations report today said the number of Palestinians living below the poverty line has climbed to nearly two-thirds, despite the Gaza pullout and a slowdown in fighting this year.

“While progress on the political front is understood as the only means to ultimately alleviate poverty and suffering, as yet there has been no sign of humanitarian improvement,” said the report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.