Israel kills senior Hamas member in missile strike

3.00pm

GAZA - Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car carrying Islamic militants on Monday, killing a senior Hamas member and wounding 25 other Palestinians in the latest violence threatening a US-backed peace plan.

Relatives identified the dead man as Khader al-Husari, a senior operative of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing. Hamas sources said two other senior Qassam members were among those wounded in the Gaza City attack.

It was the sixth such helicopter attack since August 21. Israel has now killed 11 militants and three bystanders in the Gaza Strip strikes -- bloodshed coinciding with the collapse of a truce that had underpinned the peace "road map".

"Three missiles hit the white Subaru," said Mohammed Murad, who was standing outside his electrical shop when the attack occurred. "People inside the car were on fire...The ground was shaking and people were screaming and running."

Murad was wounded in the chest and back.

Israeli helicopters last attacked on Saturday, killing Abdullah Aqel, commander of Hamas' armed wing in central Gaza.

"The continuation of the Israeli assassination policy is...going to be responsible for further deterioration," said Palestinian cabinet minister Ghassan al-Khatib.

Muslim militants renounced a seven-week-old truce after the first in the current spate of Israeli missile attacks on August 21, two days after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up an Israeli bus in Jerusalem, killing 21 people.

Palestinians say the attacks amount to assassinations. Israel says it has no alternative as Palestinian authorities had not cracked down on militant groups as required by the road map.

The plan charts a course towards an end to nearly three years of bloodshed and creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

The United States, which has urged Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to dismantle militant groups, has largely kept to the diplomatic sidelines during the latest violence.

In a long-awaited report that could put more strain on relations between Israel's Jews and minority Arabs, an Israeli state inquiry reprimanded police for killing 13 Israeli Arabs in pro-Palestinian protests three years ago.

But the findings by the Or Commission did not recommend any action against then-prime minister Ehud Barak, clearing any legal barriers to a widely expected attempt at a political comeback by the former Labour Party leader.

Israeli Arab groups denounced the report as a whitewash that failed to punish politicians overseeing police who fired live ammunition at citizens of the Jewish state during stone-throwing demonstrations.

The creation of the commission into the deaths in October 2000, soon after the start of the latest Palestinian uprising for independence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was widely seen as an attempt to appease Israel's outraged Arab minority.

After nearly three years of testimony, the commission found that police commanders committed errors of judgment when their forces shot at the demonstrators in the northern Galilee region.

The three-member Supreme Court panel recommended the dismissal of several top officers and that others no longer be allowed to hold senior security posts.

Israeli Arabs, comprising 18 per cent of Israel's population, have long complained of institutionalised discrimination.

- REUTERS