Israeli missile kills Hamas man, US urges restraint

12.00pm

GAZA - Israeli air strikes killed a Hamas militant and wounded 26 other Palestinians in Gaza City today as the Jewish state vowed "war to the bitter end" on the Islamic group, despite US calls for restraint.

Two helicopter missile attacks in Gaza and the killing of an Israeli in the West Bank piled pressure on Washington to rescue its "road map" peace effort from tit-for-tat violence, just a week after President George W Bush launched it in Jordan.

Palestinian Authority officials, who condemn the militant attacks, appealed for US help in holding back Israel's troops.

Witnesses said at least two rockets hit a car, killing 26-year-old Fuad al-Lidawi in Gaza's Sabra district, within sight of the home of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Three hours later two more missiles hit the nearby home of a well-known Hamas family, causing damage but no casualties. An Israeli military spokesman said that target was an arms arsenal.

In the West Bank, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction said its men shot and killed an Israeli in Jenin. Israeli military sources confirmed the death.

Fearing the flare-up could reduce the Middle East peace "road map" to cinders, the Palestinian Authority gathered its security chiefs and pledged to rein in militants as mandated by the plan if Israel halted its track-and-kill operations.

But Israel reserved the right to strike if the Palestinians failed to stop militants, such as a Hamas suicide bomber who killed 17 people on a Jerusalem bus on Wednesday.

"As a government responsible for the security of its citisens, we must wage a war to the bitter end (against Hamas) because no one else, at least at this stage, will do it," Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim told Israeli Army Radio.

Since the bombing, five Israeli air strikes have killed five militants and at least 16 civilians in Gaza. Hamas was unmoved.

"We are seekers of martyrdom," Yassin told al-Arabiya television. "We don't fear threats and we don't fear death."

The United States reiterated that new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, whom Washington talks to in preference to the shunned Arafat, had to act against Hamas. But it made a pointed call for restraint to its Israeli ally.

"We are all anxious to see restraint and we understand that it's important to get the terror down," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said before the Gaza strikes. "If the terror goes down, then the response to terror will no longer be required."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weisglass planned to travel to Washington on Saturday for talks, a senior Israeli government source said.

The Palestinians appealed to the United States to curb Israel, saying this was the only way of restoring the authority of their security services over militants and thus satisfy the "road map" to Palestinian statehood by 2005.

"The Palestinian Authority cannot meet its responsibilities without a US guarantee that Israel will stop its military escalation," cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said after a meeting of security chiefs in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Hundreds of Gazans, ears attuned to the clatter of incoming helicopters and hiss of Hellfire missiles, rushed to scour the debris of Lidawi's Mazda and the Sarsour family home in Sabra. Many in the crowds chanted "God is greatest" and vowed revenge.

Sworn to Israel's destruction, Hamas has spearheaded suicide bombings and other attacks during the uprising for independence which erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000.

The group held short-lived truce talks with Abbas but called them off in anger at his conciliatory speech at last week's summit with Sharon which launched the road map.

Israel says it will act against militants if Abbas' government does not, but a poll in Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Friday found 67 per cent of Israelis wanted the "assassinations policy" to stop, at least temporarily, to give him a chance to consolidate power.

- REUTERS