UNITED NATIONS/GAZA, 12 February — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan rapped Israel yesterday for its heavy bombing of Palestinian targets in Gaza City near civilian areas that also damaged adjacent UN offices and injured two staff members. Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked the Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza City earlier in the day. At least 37 people were injured by shrapnel in the second airstrike in Gaza City in two days.
“The secretary-general deplores the deepening spiral of violence between Israel and the Palestinians,” UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said. “He is dismayed at Israel’s shelling of facilities belonging to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza near civilian areas with bombs of heavy tonnage, which caused substantial damage to United Nations offices and injury to two United Nations employees,” Eckhard said.
The United States said it was “deeply troubled” by the recent escalation in violence and singled out Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian areas as a point of particular concern. “We are deeply troubled by the upsurge in violence in the region,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
The United States also moved yesterday to play down a rift between itself and Europe over Middle East peacemaking, saying it was closely coordinating its efforts with those of the Europeans. Boucher, who on Friday dismissed ideas suggested by France, said Secretary of State Colin Powell had spoken with his German and British colleagues in the last two days about the Middle East.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw are both traveling to the region this week “to coordinate our effort,” Boucher said. “We continue to work with them and others to try to make sure that we take every possible step to end the violence and to get back to the path that can lead us to peace negotiations,” he told reporters.
On Sunday, the planes targeted Palestinian Authority offices, which are next to a UN compound where Terje Roed-Larsen, the top UN special envoy for the Middle East peace process, has his offices. Two people were injured when the blasts blew out all of the first floor windows, damaged a wall and caused the collapse of a roof to a side annex. Damage was also caused to the offices of the World Bank and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Eckhard said. Annan said no solution to the crisis could be found through violence and retaliation.
US-made Apache combat helicopters attacked a building of Arafat’s elite Force 17 guards and an office of the military intelligence. F-16 fighter-bombers then dropped three heavy bombs on the Palestinians’ general intelligence offices, officials said. All the buildings are inside the Sariyeh prison and security compound in the center of the city.
The compound is close to one of the main market areas in the sprawling Mediterranean city, and many of those hurt were civilians walking along the main street, Omar Al-Mukhtar. The bombing also damaged Ansar Mosque in the center of Gaza City.
The raid followed increased pressure from the extreme right-wing Israeli Cabinet members on the hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to topple Arafat after the army said two Qassam-2 rockets, made by the military wing of Hamas, slammed into southern Israel on Sunday.
A prison housing jailed militants was hit in the second airstrike on Gaza City in two days, touching off clashes between police and protesters demanding the detainees be freed for their own protection.
Arafat said in an interview with the BBC that any attempt by Israel to replace him would fail, and senior Palestinian officials dismissed Israel’s accusations of rocket deployment in Gaza as a ploy to attack the Palestinian Authority.
UN envoy Roed-Larsen called the Israeli bombardment “utterly unacceptable” after windows in his nearby office were smashed in Gaza overnight. After yesterday’s strike, Palestinian police battled protesters demanding the release of jailed militants who had been held in a jail in the security compound, which was set ablaze.
Police fired into the air to disperse about 300 people who thronged the gates of the compound and threw stones, shouting “set them free” as police led only some prisoners out of jail. In the West Bank city of Hebron, 500 Palestinians stormed a jail and released 10 militants in the third such incident in a week, raising the specter of growing anarchy and a breakdown of law and order in Palestinian-ruled areas.
Palestinian minister Imad Al-Fallouji condemned the raids. “More bombings lead to more resistance,” he told Reuters. “The Palestinian Authority has been doing its best to restore calm but as long as occupation exists, resistance will continue.”
