Continued Mideast violence deflates truce talk

JERUSALEM - Israeli helicopter missiles crashed again and Palestinian militants vowed vengeance anew, deflating reports of an imminent ceasefire needed to prevent a new US-backed peace initiative from unravelling.

With more than 60 dead bloodying the "road map" plan since United States President George W. Bush launched it at a peace summit on June 4, and both sides disinclined to break out of a cycle of violence, Washington prepared to crank up its crisis diplomacy.

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is to visit the region this weekend to deal with the reluctance of two mistrustful sides to stop shooting first.

The road map charts confidence-building gestures leading to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip alongside Israel by 2005, but it has been plagued by violence from the start.

Israel has defended its "track-and-kill" operations against militants and its military grip on Palestinian towns by saying that to change either policy before Palestinians cease attacks would be disastrous.

The Palestinians' new reformist leadership argues it will struggle to cement a ceasefire and clip the wings of militants thriving off the misery wrought by Israeli military clampdowns unless Israel eases off.

Yesterday, an Israeli helicopter gunship fired missiles into two cars in southern Gaza, seriously wounding a wanted Hamas militant, but also killing two bystanders.

The strike came shortly after Israeli troops killed two raiding Hamas militants in northern Gaza.

Afterwards, political leaders of Hamas and its smaller cohort Islamic Jihad denied reports that they had decided to suspend attacks. They accused Israel of thwarting calm with continued "assassinations".

"Every time we near a decision Israel slaughters more of our people," said senior Hamas figure Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who was himself injured when Israel tried to assassinate him with helicopter missiles on June 10.

- REUTERS