GAZA/CAIRO, 23 August — Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles yesterday at two cars carrying the military leaders of the Hamas, killing one man. Four missiles slammed into the cars as they drove through central Gaza, killing Bilal Al-Ghoul and leaving the vehicles charred and smoldering wrecks. Pieces of metal from the vehicles hung in the branches of nearby trees.
“Our revenge for the assassination...will be thunderous and painful,” Hamas supporters later shouted through loudspeakers, vowing to avenge the killing of Ghoul. Muhammad Deif, a founder of Hamas’ Izz El-Deen Al-Qassam military wing who has topped Israel’s wanted list, escaped unharmed in the attack near the Bureij refugee camp.
“I saw two helicopters chasing the cars through a dirt road and firing four missiles,” a Palestinian witness told Reuters at the scene.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian policeman in southern Gaza and troops killed four Palestinians near the West Bank city of Nablus in a raid. Palestinian officials said three of the men were unarmed civilians who tried to rescue a wounded fighter who later died.
Palestinian gunmen shot and wounded two Jewish settlers and at least 12 Palestinians were also hurt in Israeli gunfire.
Israel has tracked and killed 60 Palestinian activists since a Palestinian uprising flared in September last year after peace talks stalled. The policy has drawn widespread international criticism.
Israel also fired two surface-to-surface missiles at a police station in southern Gaza in what it said was a response to a mortar bomb attack nearby. Seven policemen and a civilian were hurt.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo to do more to confront Israeli policies of settlement and occupation which he said were the causes of the Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.
The foreign ministers were divided as to whether the meeting should be open to the media. In the end, the majority voted to hold the session in secret, but Syria and Lebanon insisted that it should be held in public.
The controversy began when Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara demanded that the first session be kept open to the media. Then Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad ibn Jasim Al-Thani, who chaired the meeting, wanted it to be behind closed doors, with two delegates sitting with each leader.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa then intervened by backing the opinion to keep the session closed so the delegates could discuss in depth the Arab strategy. “We have to discuss important issues. So the session will remain closed,” he said. During a visit to Poland, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he still hoped to meet Arafat “rather soon”, possibly in Berlin, for talks on ending the bloodshed. “Upon my return we shall fix a date,” Peres told reporters in Warsaw, one day after he and Arafat said following separate meetings with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer that they were ready to meet for cease-fire talks. Neither side has said it is optimistic that talks will end the violence.
