GAZA, 2 November 2005 — Israel killed two Palestinian militant commanders in a missile strike in the Gaza Strip yesterday, triggering vows to “open the gates of hell” for revenge attacks against the Jewish state. A week of bloodshed, including the killing of five Israelis in a suicide bombing on Wednesday, has deflated hopes that Israel’s Gaza pullout in September would revive peacemaking.
Striking inside Jabalya, Gaza’s biggest refugee camp, an Israeli aircraft destroyed a car carrying Hassan Al-Madhoun, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander, and Fawzi Abu Al-Qarea, leader of Hamas’ armed wing in the camp. Madhoun, 32, and Qarea, 37, were killed instantly and at least 10 people were wounded, medics said. Witnesses said the car bore a red Palestinian Authority security license plate.
The attack came minutes after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in the coastal territory apparently seeking to restore calm amid the worst flare-up of violence since he engineered a truce nearly nine month ago. Over the past week, Israel has carried out numerous strikes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, killing 13 Palestinians, most of them gunmen. The Israeli attacks followed an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in an Israeli coastal town and cross-border rocket fire by the group.
“This assassination will open the gates of hell on the enemy,” Islamic Jihad, a group sworn to Israel’s destruction, said after yesterday’s strike. Islamic Jihad had expressed a readiness on Sunday to halt rocket fire if air raids stopped, but Israeli officials pledged to press ahead with a military campaign against militant groups.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Abbas’ Fatah faction, said after the missile attack it had ordered all its cells “to strike the enemy everywhere.” Hamas, which had largely stayed on the sidelines in the latest outbreak of violence, said it “will not stand handcuffed.”
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian Authority was “exerting maximum efforts” to persuade all factions to cease their attacks. “And now this comes. It is like pouring oil on the fire,” he said.
