Israel and Hamas vow to fight to the finish
Efforts to find peace in the Middle East took more serious blows today as the Israeli prime minister vowed to hunt Hamas militants “to the bitter end” and the Islamic terror group threatened to unleash multiple attacks.
At least 35 Israelis and Palestinians have been killed and more than 130 wounded in a cycle of tit-for-tat violence that has escalated sharply.
Israeli helicopter gunships launched their third missile attack in 24 hours against vehicles carrying Hamas activists in Gaza City today.
A Hamas military activist, Yasser Taha, was killed along with his 25-year-old wife Fatima, their two-year-old daughter Asnan and four other people, doctors said. Twenty-five people were wounded.
Baby shoes and a baby bottle were pulled from the burning car. The three strikes have killed 18 Palestinians – about half of them civilians. Witnesses said at least one missile hit as bystanders surrounded Taha’s car.
Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon had earlier ridiculed Palestinian leaders as “cry-babies” for saying they could not disarm the militant groups by force.
He said Israel would not wait around for his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas to persuade the terrorists to halt their attacks. Abbas was a “chick that has not grown its feathers yet,” Sharon said.
The spike in violence – a Hamas bus bombing in Jerusalem and three Israeli air strikes – came only a week after US President George Bush launched a Mideast road map to peace at a summit in Jordan with both prime ministers.
Difficulties in implementing the plan had been expected, but many were surprised by such a rapid return to carnage and bloodshed.
Bush angrily condemned yesterday’s bus bombing and urged all nations to cut off financial aid to terrorists. Earlier, he had rebuked Sharon for a botched Israeli attempt to kill Hamas founder Abdel Aziz Rantisi, which led to threats of revenge by the group.
The first retaliation for the failed assassination attempt came during yesterday’s afternoon rush hour on busy Jaffa Street in central Jerusalem.
An 18-year-old Palestinian from Hebron boarded a bus disguised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew and blew himself up, killing 16 people and wounding more than 100.
The blast lifted the bus into the air and hurled several passengers through the shattered windows.
Hamas said today that it was preparing for multiple attacks.
“We are calling on all military cells to act immediately and act like an earthquake to blow up the Zionist entity and tear it to pieces,” the group said in a statement.
It also urged foreigners to leave Israel for their own safety.
The warning was perhaps Hamas’ harshest since it began carrying out suicide bombings in the mid-1990s. The Islamic militant group has often lived up to its threats of revenge.
President Bush’s spokesman said today that Hamas was the main stumbling block to peace. “The issue is Hamas. The terrorists are Hamas,” Ari Fleischer said.
US Middle East envoy John Wolf is to leave for the region this weekend, a State Department official said in Washington.
Less than an hour after yesterday’s bus bombing, Israeli helicopters targeted two members of Hamas’ military wing as they drove through a crowded Gaza City neighbourhood.
The two were killed in a ball of fire, and witnesses said more missiles were fired as hundreds of bystanders ringed the burning vehicle. Seven more people were killed and 35 wounded by the second volley.
Early today, another Israeli rocket attack killed two low level Hamas activists in Gaza City.
Sharon declared that although he remains committed to negotiating a peace deal, he will still go after the violent Palestinian groups.
“The state of Israel will continue to pursue the Palestinian terror organisations and their leaders to the bitter end,” he said.
