Israeli missiles pound West Bank

GAZA - Israeli helicopter gunships pounded parts of Gaza and the West Bank with missiles yesterday hours after troops killed a Palestinian schoolboy and tanks rumbled into two Palestinian-ruled areas of Gaza.

At least 14 Palestinians were wounded in the missile strike on a Palestinian security compound in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, hospital officials said.

In Jenin, an Israeli helicopter gunship fired seven missiles at the West Bank city's main police headquarters, witnesses said. No casualties were immediately reported.

The strikes came after signs that Washington is stepping up diplomatic efforts to stem nearly eight months of violence since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

In the Gaza Strip, four missiles left a compound belonging to Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan's Preventive Security branch badly damaged.

Chanting "long live death" and "revenge, revenge, revenge," about 5000 residents of the refugee camp encircled the damaged security compound in the heart of the camp, waving their fists in the air in defiance.

"This is part of the aggressive war carried out against us and our people by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his military generals in order to defeat our people," Dahlan told reporters. "Anyone who thinks Palestinians will succumb to this aggression is deluded."

Israel's Army said it had attacked the security post in Gaza after several shooting incidents and other attacks against Israelis were carried out and planned from the area.

It added it attacked a Palestinian Authority building in Jenin "used to manufacture weapons and mortar bombs."

More than 537 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed since the intifada flared in September when peace talks stalled.

Violence again took its toll, the day after Israeli soldiers killed four Palestinians during mass protests in the West Bank and Gaza for the annual commemoration of decades of Palestinian exile since Israel's creation in 1948.

Fifteen-year-old Mohammed Salim was shot dead as he passed an Israeli Army watchtower near the heavily guarded Jewish settlement of Netzarim in Gaza. Palestinian ambulance workers said he had been carrying his schoolbag and was targeted without provocation.

The Israeli Army said its soldiers had shot at the legs of a stone-thrower after he got dangerously close to their position. It made no mention of a Palestinian killed.

Later in the day, Israeli forces moved into two Palestinian-ruled parts of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces entered an area near the Gush Katif settlement and took over a multi-storey building from which they said a mortar bomb had been fired.

Bulldozers protected by tanks went into the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun and uprooted fruit trees.

- REUTERS

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