GAZA, 29 October 2005 — Israel killed a Palestinian in an airstrike in Gaza yesterday, after vowing it would not stop its hunt for gunmen despite a US call to renew contacts with the Palestinians. The missile landed near two cars in north Gaza that carried militants from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, and from Islamic Jihad, which killed five Israelis in a suicide bombing on Wednesday.
The Israeli Army said it had been targeting militants who were en route to a rocket launch pad near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Israel has stepped up such attacks since Wednesday’s suicide bombing, the first after it completed its pullout from Gaza on Sept. 12. An Israeli airstrike on a car in Gaza on Thursday killed eight Palestinians, mostly militants.
Palestinian medics said the attack near Beit Hanoun destroyed the two vehicles and killed an Al-Aqsa militant, while the rest of the men seemed to have escaped unharmed. An Al-Aqsa spokesman said militants from his group had fired a rocket into Israel shortly before the strike.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom earlier signaled that Thursday’s air raid would not be Israel’s last reprisal for the suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Hadera. “The message cannot be one of silence and restraint after such a terrible attack,” Shalom told Israel Radio when asked about the US entreaty. “The terror organizations must know that we will continue to hunt them everywhere, all the time.”
Washington appears increasingly concerned about the latest blows to an eight-month-old cease-fire.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted by the daily Yedioth Ahronoth as saying Abbas was “not delivering the goods” as a peace partner and voicing doubts about a peace deal in this generation. The Palestinians said the main obstacle was Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered a broad offensive against Islamic Jihad, which said it carried out the Hadera bombing to avenge Israel’s killing of one of its top West Bank commander on Monday.
Late on Thursday, a missile blew apart a car carrying Islamic Jihad commander Shadi Mhanna, who had overseen the group’s cross-border rocket fire into Israel, and three comrades in a Gaza refugee camp. Four bystanders also died. The Palestinian Interior Ministry accused Israel of carrying out “terror acts that will not help in restoring security.”
Islamic Jihad vowed revenge. Its initial response was the firing of a makeshift rocket into Israel, causing no damage or casualties. About 20,000 mourners marched in funerals in Gaza chanting “Death to Israel” and echoing the Iranian president’s comments earlier this week that the Jewish state should be “wiped off the map,” a call that has stirred international condemnation.
