Israeli missiles hit 'mortar factory'

GAZA - Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least seven missiles at Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip yesterday, prompting new Palestinian demands for international intervention which Israeli quickly dismissed.

The air strikes, which followed fighting earlier yesterday, were the latest in a series of raids which Israel says are needed to protect its people but which have heightened international concern that the conflict could rapidly spin out of control.

Palestinian officials said the helicopters also opened fire with machineguns in the Gaza Strip but reported no casualties other than a night watchman who was slightly hurt. The blasts rocked Gaza City, damaging a car mechanic's workshop, a marble factory and library. The Army said the helicopters hit a factory used to make mortar bombs.

The Palestinians, in the midst of an 8-month-old uprising against Israeli rule, have stepped up calls for international protection since Israel deployed F-16 fighter jets in air strikes on Saturday after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five Israelis.

The Palestinians have also been incensed by the shelling of West Bank Preventive Security chief Jibril Rajoub's house in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He was unhurt.

"This is part of the war on the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority. Israel is acting as a state above the law," Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said of the air strikes in Gaza.

"It is time for the world to stop this state before it is too late."

Despite the growing international criticism of Israel, cabinet minister Danny Naveh said the Government still opposed the dispatch of any international peace force to the region.

"International intervention and international forces won't solve the problem. They can only serve the Palestinian interest to try to impose pressure on Israel and that's something we cannot accept," he told Army radio.

At least 441 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 87 Israelis have been killed since the uprising flared last September.

A fact-finding committee led by former United States Senator George Mitchell was due overnight to publish its report into the fighting, although the details are already widely known.

The committee was expected to demand both sides halt the violence and call for Israel to freeze development of Jewish settlements built in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.

The Palestinians have accepted the report's recommendations, although it does not call for international peacekeepers to be sent to the region.

Israel has expressed reservations about the report's criticism of Jewish settlements and about its criticism of the Army's tactics and use of force.

Israel denied Palestinian accusations that it tried to assassinate Rajoub by hitting his Ramallah house with three tank shells. Three bodyguards were hurt, although he was not.

"The Israelis are insisting on assassinating every Palestinian. Whether he is a civilian. Whether he is a leader. Whether he is a simple person," Rajoub said.

The Army said troops near Ramallah had come under Palestinian fire and responded with tank shells at "the precise source of the fire, which was definitely from the courtyard of Jibril Rajoub's house."

"He is not a target. On the contrary, we want to talk to him," Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israeli television. Rajoub has negotiated security pacts with Israeli officials in the past.

At least 10 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli tank fire near the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Qalqiliya. Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen also exchanged heavy fire in the West Bank town of Hebron.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres arrived in Moscow yesterday for talks on the escalating violence in the Middle East.

President Hosni Mubarak said yesterday that Egypt would continue intensive efforts to mediate the troubled Israeli-Palestinian peace process despite an Arab League's recommendation urging Arab Governments to halt all political contacts with the Jewish state.

- REUTERS

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