HEBRON, West Bank, 11 December — Continuing its policy of assassination, Israel yesterday killed two Palestinian children in a raid in West Bank as an explosion on a truck carrying gas canisters killed one person and wounded another near the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government building in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Israel said the target of the attack on a car in the divided city of Hebron was a Islamic Jihad leader.
The Jihad leader, Muhammad Sidr, sustained shrapnel wounds and burns in the attack but two children — three-year-old Burhan Al-Himuni and Shadi Arafi, 13, —were killed.
Witnesses said a helicopter firing three missiles reduced one car to a mass of charred metal and damaged two others.
The toddler’s twisted, burned body was laid out on a hospital floor before being covered with an orange blanket.
The child’s father, who had been walking in the street with the baby, was among 12 people wounded. He was in a critical condition.
"Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon is a child killer who does not respect the sanctity of life," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said in a statement.
A Palestinian security source accused Israeli forces of firing a tank shell at the truck that triggered the explosion, killing the driver, but he cited no evidence. Palestinian sources later said it was an accident.
Minutes before the Hebron strike, Sharon met US peace envoy Anthony Zinni to urge him to stick with his peace-making mission after the former Marine Corps general voiced exasperation over a lack of progress.
Following his talks with Sharon, Zinni traveled to the West Bank city of Ramallah and met Arafat. Earlier in the day, Palestinian officials publicly urged Zinni to keep up his peace efforts.
In Doha, representatives of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims denounced Israel’s repression of Palestinians and urged the United States to help salvage the sinking Middle East peace process.
"We urge the United States and the international community to work for an immediate end to Israel’s policies which only lead to the destruction of the last chance for peace in our region," Qatar’s emir told an emergency meeting of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Emir Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al-Thani, the current OIC head, also called for the setting up of a high-profile panel to work toward ending 14 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence and a resumption of Middle East peacemaking.
Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem said the panel was among proposals discussed by Arab and Islamic foreign ministers before the OIC meeting in the Qatari capital Doha.
The panel would be asked to visit Washington and other key capitals to explain the OIC position in support of an independent Palestinian state, he told Reuters.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a speech read out on his behalf at the OIC meeting defended the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli aggression and occupation as "legitimate."
"Our people have no other choice but to resist (Israeli) aggression and occupation," said the text of the speech read by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat at the meeting. "It’s a legitimate right," he said.
Arafat reiterated his call for a force to protect Palestinians through the establishment of an "international mechanism that will force Israel to put an end to its aggression against the Palestinian people, its National Authority and its president."
In Brussels, EU foreign ministers meeting yesterday called on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the "terrorist networks" of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In a joint statement, the Council of Ministers also urged Israel to withdraw its military forces from the Palestinian territories, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said.
